Reichert’s plight: A lackluster debate and a glaring lack of money
Plus some recommended reading
Republican Dave Reichert’s toughest task in this election is putting sufficient distance between himself and Donald Trump to make enough 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 will 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.
Queary on Fashion
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 workplaces1 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 reporter2 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 $513K, 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 $1.6M, including more than a million bucks in advertising. He’s also still sitting on $1.3M 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 $472K at the end of the month, though he’s raised nearly $5M 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 $750K in cash and in-kind help from the Washington State Democratic Party. The party also got $425K 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.
PQ
Recommended Reading:
Jerry Cornfield with the Washington State Standard unpacks one thing both candidates for the Governor’s race reportedly agree on. Republican Congressman Dave Reichert and state Attorney General Bob Ferguson said changing the Superintendent of Public Instruction, which oversees the 295 public school districts and six tribal schools in Washington, from an elected office to a cabinet appointment, could help students and school districts. Reichert mentioned it in an interview with the Seattle Times Editorial Board, while Ferguson included transitioning the Superintendent to a cabinet role as part of his newly released education plan. Incumbent Superintendent Chris Reykdal has been pushing for this change for a few years now, but his Republican competitor for the job, David Olson, told The Standard he doesn’t believe the role should change to a partisan appointment.
While the idea of changing the Superintendent to a cabinet role has gotten some traction in the past, the bipartisan cooperation required to make a constitutional change makes it unlikely to occur. To remove the Superintendent of Public Instruction from the ballot, a supermajority of lawmakers would need to vote to give Washington’s voters an opportunity to amend the state constitution. We anticipate neither Republican nor Democratic lawmakers would be inclined to give a future governor of the opposition party such authority.
SK
An irksome error
We undersold Rep. Chris Corry’s cash infusion into the House Republican Organizational Committee in Monday’s edition. Corry, R-Yakima, moved $120K through the surplus shuffle into the PAC controlled by minority Republicans in the House, making him its third-biggest benefactor this year. Corry was a sort-of beneficiary of the federal court redrawing the electoral map of the Yakima Valley. He was moved into the 15th District, which was made overwhelmingly Republican so his old district, the neighboring 14th, could be made theoretically winnable by the Democrats. As a result, he had an easy path back to the House and could send money back to the caucus to help in close races elsewhere.
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Paul typically writes in a disreputable, decades-old Carleton College hoodie.
Print reporters–especially male print reporters–are notorious for meeting the letter of the dress code and no more. It’s partly culture and partly the fact that reporter money frequently doesn't stretch to fancy threads. Jim Brunner of The Seattle Times, who normally rocks a faintly punk-rock variation of this look, kicked it up a notch to help moderate this debate.
Did we watch the same debate? Ferguson came off as such an arrogant ass. When not attacking and redirecting the question to divisive issues he mostly spoke in generalities about his credentials. Reichert had a couple shaky moments but in our (swing-voting) household won by mostly staying on policy and just appearing like a normal person.