Testing the Mullet-for-governor hypothesis
Plus two plans to boost voter turnout and some recommended reading
Recent polls on the governor’s race — from the left and right — indicate state Sen. Mark Mullet’s centrist bid for the sweet suite in the capitol is mired in single digits. So we were intrigued when the folks at the Jackson Legacy Fund slipped us a new survey that takes a deeper dive into the gubernatorial viability of the Issaquah Democrat.
First off, a sizable grain of salt: The Jackson Fund, which works to elect moderate, pro-business Democrats, is closely aligned with Mullet,1 although it’s against the rules for them to coordinate with his campaign. The folks who bankroll it — a mix of private-sector labor unions and name-brand corporation2 — yearn for a governor who would be a check on the increasingly progressive bent of the Democratic majorities in the Legislature.
The marquee finding of the survey is that a strong majority — 59 percent of the 600 people surveyed in December by Republican-leaning polling firm Moore Information Group — would not support an anti-abortion Republican for governor. That bolsters the widely held conventional wisdom that the undecideds in those polls we mentioned at the top would break against former GOP Congressman Dave Reichert if he’s on the ballot come November after an avalanche of abortion-rights money reminds voters of his record on that issue. Here’s the relevant slide:
Here’s why you should care about this: The smart pro-business money in Washington recoils from the prospect of the ascension of Attorney General Bob Ferguson to the top job. But those folks have largely abandoned any dream of a Republican governor given the state’s leftward shift in recent years, the enduring drag of Donald Trump on the GOP ticket, and continued backlash against the Big Supremes’ decision to toss Roe v. Wade. Their choices boil down to Mullet or the sideline.
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