Pro-Constantine PAC pours $118K into exec race
Pro-Constantine PAC pours $118K into exec race
Constantine's campaign goes negative on Nguyen
A new committee backing King County Executive Dow Constantine’s bid for a fourth term has jumped into the race in a big way.
The committee, King County Progress, spent $118,000 on digital advertising supporting the incumbent, who has a challenge from the left this year from state Sen. Joe Nguyen.
Meanwhile, this mailer against Nguyen that highlights the “defund the police” issue hit mailboxes this week. That’s an unusual tactic for an entrenched incumbent with a 9-1 fundraising advantage.
It’s more typical for the incumbent to barely acknowledge the challenger’s existence. Both developments suggest the race might have tightened since the primary.
The independent money comes from a variety of labor unions with a smattering of property developers, rich people, and corporate donors, according to its filings with the Public Disclosure Commission. It’s led by SEIU Healthcare 1199 President Diane Sosne, philanthropist Maryanne Tagney, and Monty Anderson, head of the Seattle Building Trades.
The committee was formed in early September, a couple of weeks after Constantine’s campaign polled the race in late August. So it’s likely the funders’ decision to invest was informed by the research.
The survey’s $40,000 cost indicates extensive message-testing, both for and against both candidates.Constantine’s people won’t say what the poll found. It could be that it showed Constantine, who got about 52 percent in the primary to Nguyen’s 32 percent, was weak enough to really need this help. For argument’s sake, let’s assume that Constantine was under 50 percent, with a big chunk of undecided voters.
That would make his backers worried not just about younger voters just tuning in for the general election gravitating to the challenger, who is 20-plus years younger than the incumbent, but about the county’s still-significant tranche of conservative voters, who don’t really have a home in this election. It’s hard to imagine those folks gravitating to Nguyen, a progressive firebrand, but they certainly don’t love Constantine.
But this could also just be Constantine’s allies trying to run up the score to make sure he comes through this challenge with as much long-term viability as possible. Barely eking out a win against a progressive challenger on his home turf wouldn’t make “Constantine for Governor 2024” roll off the tongue.
Elsewhere in interesting late campaign money…
Bruce Harrell for Seattle’s Future put another $75,000 in rich-people money into TV ads. The ads are overwhelmingly weighted toward opposing Harrell’s opponent in the Seattle mayoral race, Lorena González. The PAC has not spent more than $1 million on the race.
The Civic Alliance for a Progressive Economy spent $6,000 on digital ads opposing Sara Nelson, the mainstream business community’s choice for González’s seat on the Seattle City Council.
Concerned Taxpayers of Washington State, the conservative PAC founded and largely bankrolled by truck dealer Steve Gordon has spent at least $5,700 on digital ads supporting incumbent Port of Seattle Commissioner Stephanie Bowman. As we reported in The Sunday Observer, Bowman faces is one of the targets of a generational challenge to remake the port’s leadership.
Down in Clark County, the Washington Conservation Voters Action Fund spent $5,400 on phone calls supporting the re-election of Port of Vancouver
Commissioner Eric LaBrant. LaBrant’s initial election in 2015 was fueled by environmentalist opposition to a giant oil terminal at the port to bring in crude by train and ship it out in tankers on the Columbia River. A few years later, a second green-backed candidate, Don Orange, won a startlingly expensive campaign to give opponents of the terminal a majority on the three-seat board, which helped kill the project.Two things about that Kim Wyman story…
By now you’ve probably heard of the CNN scoop that Secretary of State Kim Wyman is in line for an election security job a Homeland Security. The thing that jumped out at us about that idea is that it’s just some next-level politics on two levels.
Someone on Biden’s political team is doubtless in charge of shoring up support among the Lincoln Project-following, Dispatch-reading never-Trump conservatives who reluctantly filled in the “D” box last year. Wyman is just the thing to make some of those folks overcome their aversion to the giant pile of the taxpayers’ money the Biden administration is trying to get Congress to spend.
It also lets Biden make a sizable deposit in the favor bank
with the Washington State Democratic Party, which may finally be able to overcome the huge embarassment of failing to seize a statewide office held by Republicans for more than 50 years.Some irritating corrections
In last week’s football metaphor regarding hit pieces, we misidentified former San Francisco 49ers tight end Vernon Davis as Vernon Jordan. The late Vernon Jordan, of course, was the noted fixer and ally of former President Bill Clinton.
In the same edition, we dropped the “h” from King County Council candidate Sarah Perry’s name.
In The Sunday Observer, we inadvertently moved Sam Cho’s race for the Seattle Port Commission back in time to 2017 in one reference.
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And now, an expressive gaze from our promising rookie
Constantine has raised more than $1.8 million to Nguyen’s $200K-plus. That’s a bit misleading because Constantine spent much of that money years ago on a shadow campaign for governor that he had to abandon when Gov. Jay Inslee announced he would seek a third term.
Independent expenditure committees aren’t supposed to coordinate with campaigns, but there’s nothing to prevent someone from starting such a committee after learning a race is alarmingly close.
Conflict of Interest Disclaimer: During my prior life as a strategic communications consultant, the Port of Vancouver was among my clients.
Credit for this artful phrase should always go to the late Tom Wolfe, who put it in the mouth of fixer-lawyer Tommy Killian in “The Bonfire of the Vanities.” Pour one out for the man in the white suit.