Republican Dave Reichert’s toughest task in this election is putting sufficient distance between himself and Donald Trump to make centrist voters comfortable enough to send a GOP candidate to the governor’s mansion for the first time in four decades. Tuesday’s debate performance featured no magical rhetorical hammer to break the shackle that binds the former congressman to the former president.
It didn’t help that the opening act for his first faceoff with Democrat Attorney General Bob Ferguson was 90 minutes of Vice President Kamala Harris baiting Trump into ever-weirder flights of mendacity. The political millstone that is Donald Trump in Washington State politics seems to get heavier by the hour.
Ferguson took obvious relish in hanging that weight around Reichert’s neck, much to his opponent’s frustration. Ferguson’s most potent zinger of the evening was a response to Reichert’s attempt to claim the high ground on public safety. I’ll take no lectures from you about public safety when you are voting for and supported a convicted felon for president,” Ferguson snapped.
Reichert responded that he didn’t plan to vote for Trump, which just teed Ferguson up to deploy all that audio provided by Zach the Track of Reichert embracing the former president and conservative positions in what he thought were safe Republican rooms earlier in the campaign.
Reichert faces a steep and rocky path in November. He got less than 28% of the vote in August’s primary. Ferguson pulled in nearly 45%, and adding in the Democrat-identified also-rans in the crowded field gets him well north of 50%. Reichert needed a needle-moving performance in Tuesday’s debate, and he didn’t deliver.
Eight years removed from his last campaign for Congress, Reichert looked slow and rusty on the debate stage. He frequently stumbled in his responses and repeatedly ran out of time to complete his points. Toward the end of the debate he actually apologized for his performance.
Ferguson, in contrast, gave a tight, focused performance that leaned into progressive antagonism toward Trump and his followers. He touted his office’s many legal fights with the Trump administration and repeatedly smacked Reichert with his fealty to the former president while in Congress. His smartest-guy-in-the-room tone, which frequently bordered on the supercilious, likely didn’t win him many new friends, but also likely didn’t lose him many either.
Debate performance aside, the real bad news for Republicans on Tuesday was in the Reichert campaign’s latest filing with the Public Disclosure Commission. Before we go there, one more critique on the debate: Dude, no jacket and tie?
Reichert took the stage in a blue dress shirt open at the neck, with the cuffs rolled up. Now, we totally get that the necktie is an anachronism in most workplaces these days, but the statehouse isn’t one of those places. Perhaps this was an everyman play? Or intended to emphasize that Reichert is formidably jacked for a man of his years? Maybe he got 75% dressed and said “Ah, f**k that. Not putting on a tie.” In any case, when the print reporter among the moderators shows up your fashion game, it’s not a good look.
Reichert’s money problems
The Reichert campaign pulled in just $480,000 in August. More importantly, his campaign spent just $513,000, nearly all of it on staff, consultants, and fundraising costs. Notably absent was any kind of big TV or digital advertising. If you’re a Republican, those numbers look a little too much like Loren Culp 2020.
Ferguson, meanwhile, raised more than $1.2 million and spent $1.6 million, including more than a million bucks in advertising. He’s also still sitting on $1.3 million for the final push, leaving him in good financial standing even if his formidable campaign cash machine were to break down at the eleventh hour. Reichert’s campaign had just $472,000 at the end of the month, though he’s raised nearly $5 million overall.
It’s also not clear that Reichert’s going to get much outside help. The Washington State Republican Party, which endorsed conservative Semi Bird ahead of the primary, has yet to send him any cash, and things are looking pretty threadbare at GOP headquarters. (This could change in a hurry, so stay tuned.)
Ferguson, meanwhile, has been the beneficiary of more than $750,000 in cash and in-kind help from the Washington State Democratic Party. The party also got $425,000 from the Democratic Governors Association to help keep the mansion in Democratic hands.
That said, Reichert isn’t completely without big benefactors: If you were watching the debate carefully, you might have seen an attack ad against Ferguson aired by a new PAC called Washington 24. The money comes mostly from trucking magnate and conservative megadonor Steve Gordon.
As we’ve noted before, a related Gordon-funded project compiled opposition research on Ferguson in hopes that the Republican Governors Association would bring some firepower to this race. We haven’t seen that yet, and we have to think the folks at the RGA won’t be impressed with the debate tape.
This article first appeared in the author’s political website, The Washington Observer.
It is so unfortunate that Ferguson does not have a serious contender for Governor.
His coronation could be a spectacle for an extension of one-party rule in Washington State. I vote as an independent — not as a Republican or Democrat. The Republicans are caught up in the cult of Trump, especially the state GOP. When will they figure out that Washington State will not stand for tossing immigrants (think agriculture), or the prospect of a national abortion ban, or the long hand of the law.
There are three things voters should know about Dave Reichert: He’s old, he’s lazy, and he’s dumb. During the debate, he exposed himself as a bumbling, stumbling old fool who isn’t close to being up to speed on the policy issues that affect our state.
Bob Ferguson has campaigned in all 39 counties in the state (and likely, all 49 legislative districts) in three election cycles already — all victories. Whether he carried all of them or not, the voters there can’t deny that he showed up and heard their concerns. His record in office suggests he’d do the same as Governor. Reichert couldn’t match that if he chugged Red Bull from morning to night.
Reichert’s only saving grace in this debate was that he DIDN’T wear a necktie (sorry, Paul). I hope it starts a trend. The necktie is the most worthless and useless male accouterment extant, a sad anachronism in a changing world.
Rant over. Vote Ferguson.
Have you ever been in the same room as Bob? He almost always actually is the smartest person in any room he’s in, and will be a great Governor.
I will vote for a smart candidate over a dumb one regardless the political party. I heard Bob Ferguson speak to several groups before he began to run for governor and yes, he was the smartest. But he is also a good listener and he takes time to hear what his constituents have to say.