Washington’s remodeled 1st congressional district is getting pretty damn crowded with congressional candidates.
Today Democrat Susan DelBene announced her run for Congress. She joins a pack of Democrats, including Darcy Burner, Laura Ruderman, state Rep. Roger Goodman, state Sen. Steve Hobbs, and Darshan Rauniyar.
DelBene ran against Rep. Dave Reichert (R-WA-08) in 2010, narrowly losing. Burner has run for congress twice—2006 and 2008—narrowly losing to Rep. Dave Reichert (R-WA-08) each time.
The Republicans in the race are John Koster and James Watkins. Koster ran unsuccessfully against Rep. Rick Larsen (D-WA-02), losing in 2004 and narrowly losing in 2010. Watkins lost to Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA-01) in 2010.
Sometime in the next week, Larry Ismael is expected to formally declare as an independent candidate. Ismael ran as a Republican against Inslee in 2006 and 2008, losing to Inslee by a 3 2:1 margin each time.
It is hard to tell who the front runner is at this point. The closest thing we have to a poll is from the Burner campaign. Late last year, they ran it in the proposed first district in order to test the waters:
The pollster did a favorable/unfavorable on the possible female candidates: former state legislator Laura Ruderman, the top fund raiser in the current field; Darcy Burner; and Suzan DelBene, the Democrat who challenged Reichert in 2008, who has also talked about getting in this time.
Then the poll did a horse race check for all candidates; others include state Reps. Roger Goodman and Marko Liias, state Sen. Steve Hobbs, and Bothell business entrepreneur (and surprise fundraiser) Darshan Rauniyar.
Then there was a horse race question between Burner and James Watkins, the Republican whose going for Inslee’s seat.
The pollster released a highly abbreviated summary of the results:
- Darcy Burner has an overwhelming lead over all other declared Democratic candidates in the proposed new WA-01. In the primary election among Democratic voters, Burner leads with 47% of the Democratic vote, greatly exceeding the 12% the next Democrat receives, and is +7 points higher than the 40% garnered by the entire rest of the field.
- Among all voters in the primary election, Burner also leads all other Democratic candidates by huge margins—27% support Burner while the next closest Democrat draws just 7% of the vote. In fact, Burner draws greater support than all other Democratic candidates COMBINED (27% for Burner vs. 22% for the six other Democratic candidates tested).
- Fully 50% of Democratic voters have a favorable impression of Burner, while just 11% have an unfavorable impression, with 39% unsure. Four out of five (82%) Democratic voters who have an opinion about Burner have a favorable impression of her.
- Burner’s overall name recognition (55%) is much stronger than that of Laura Ruderman (14%).
These results must be tempered by the fact that the new 1st may not look anything at all like the polled “proposed 1st.” Also, the information missing from the polling summary may be missing for a reason.
My feeling is that Burner really is the front-runner, but its almost entirely because of name recognition following two media-intensive campaigns in years when Democrats were tuning into elections. DelBene’s run was more recent, but in a year that didn’t excite Democrats. Name recognition alone won’t translate into a win.
Burner has something else going for her. Publicola points out that she leads other candidates in fundraising*. DelBene can self-finance her campaign, but a dollar raised by a candidate is far more valuable than a dollar out of a candidate’s pocket, because it builds brand loyalty. Burner’s two month head start over DelBene may turn out to be important.
The Big Problem with so many Democrats (and some very good Democrats at that) in the race, is the possibility that two Republicans come out on top in our goofy top two primary system. With any luck, the field will start shrinking on the Democratic side, but not so much on the Republican and independent side….
*As Daniel K points out, I misread the fundraising statement in Publicola.
Oops!
I’m not trying to dis on anyone in the race, but having 3 women in the race who’ve all lost recent elections seems a bit curious.
Michael,
It isn’t just the women. The men, too: Koster (2), Watkins (1) and Ismael (2) lost one or more congressional races.
It’s fair to say that there is a very high probability that the next Rep. from the 1st will have previously lost a congressional race….
@2
Good point. That’s not something you see all that often.
I don’t see why there should be any Republicans in any of our 10 new congressional districts. We should put them all in a new underground district and call it “Hades.” Just kidding, wingnut joke …
Darryl, don’t be so negative. What if 2 D’s top the primary? That said, that’s kinda why I hate the primary system as it stands now.
And who’s declared for the other side so far? If Ismael is going to run as an independent, that either means that there is, or will be, a strong R in the race….
Ishmael was beat by Inslee by a little more than 2 to 1 each time. 67.76% to 32.24% in 2008, and 67.72% to 32.28% in 2006. By contrast, Inslee beat Watkins in 2010 by (only) 57.67% to 42.33%. Rossi got about 42% of the vote in 2010 against Murray, and also in 2008 against Gregoire.
While Ishmael was not beat by anything near 3 to 1, he still ran much more weakly than the average Republican in the 1st.
The figures for Rossi above were for the old 1st, not statewide of course :)
Darcy losing by 7 points in 2008 is “narrowly losing”?? since when is 7 points in an election considered close?
not saying it was a blowout, but for fucks sake, with obama winning everything, she should have won. without obama and the prez election, burner would have lost by 20 point or more..
just sayin…
@1,
I don’t know if I’d call Ruderman’s 2004 loss recent.
@8,
Burner got over 48.5% in 2006 when there wasn’t a presidential election. It was a wave year for D’s, but it certainly wasn’t Obama’s coat tails.
@8 Burner lost by only 5% in 2008 — 52.78% to 47.22%. Rossi happened to get 50.73% of the vote in the old 8th CD in 2008, with Gregoire at only 49.27%. So I would say that a congressional challenger doing only two percent less than an incumbent governor is pretty good.
In 2010, DelBene lost to Reichert by 52.05% to 47.95%, slightly more than Burner’s 2008 loss. Arguably a better showing, but then again, DelBene put millions of her own money into the race, was viewed as more moderate, and had a more substantial resume.
Darryl does his usual excellent job with the numbers but he is less impressive with the politics and his DL bias is peaking out from under his well mannered academic robe.
1. Who is the party behind? Everything I read says this will be DelBene or possibly Ruderman. The new district is a swing district whose future likely depends on growth of upper middle class Democrats and rural conservative republicans. They want someone who is in the mold of Obama rather then McDermitt … a business liberal.
Watch who gets endorsements.
2. Money. Darryl’s aphorism about the value of different dollars might be true IF DelBene were foolish enough NOT to mimic the Obama strategy of using big money to raise a lot of small contributions. She will also outdraw Burner in the packaged money from Medina.
Expect a well funded fund raising campaign from DelBene.
3. Polls Here i have more respect for Darryl but I wish he or someone should do the work of using precinct records to measure the lean of the newly comprised first.
Expect?? .. I hope Darryl does this for us all.
4. Issues. Darcy’s elf annointed expertise on war and peace is not a good thing. She needs to establish herself on issues that are esp relevant to an affluent district.
Expect? Not sure but if I were Darcy I wuld be looking for a distinctive issue that would sell in the new CD. I am not sure what those might be but here are a few thoughts:
a. trade policies. Microsoft and Boeing both have major interest in trade with
China.
b. skilled immigration. The USA is experinecing the beginnings of a brain drain of college grads going back home to India and China rather than staying here.
c. higher ed. Berkeley is well on its wayway to becoming a private school. Princeton now costs less than the UW.
d. Canada There are a number of largely neglected issues that affect the large border of the new District with Canada. Ross Lake, border patrols ??? I am not sure that any of this sells in the populated south of the new CD but other issues that are more regional .. e.g. high speed rail between Vanc BC and Seattle may be inter4esting.
SJ,
“DL bias”? That’s funny. But what the fuck is it?!?
Drinking Liberally …
The best part of DL is that it can be very objective … we get to met real pols and their minions. Darcy is the extreme example of that.
That said, there is also a natural bias for Darcy because she is .. in a way .. a product of the DL extended community. A Darcy win would strengthen the bloggger-liberal communality.
FWIW. I wish she had chosen to stay around here and build. I think her ambitions are more national then local. Now, It will be fun to see how shge campaigns vs. DelBene.
Wonder if we could get a two Dem race in the final?
SJ @ 13,
I was specifically interested in the concept of DL _BIAS_. I attend DL regularly (as do you). But I am not sure that DL has changed my politics much. (And I don’t think it has changed yours either.)
Broadway Joe @ 5,
“Darryl, don’t be so negative. What if 2 D’s top the primary? That said, that’s kinda why I hate the primary system as it stands now.”
That’d be great! But the Dems currently have more candidates and stronger candidates in the race to split the Democratic/liberal vote. Republicans will have two very different candidates. Ishmael’s candidacy may well be irrelevant. In a 50-50 district, all these things make it more likely that two Rs end up in the General than 2 Ds. Still, I believe the most likely outcome is 1 D and 1 R.
And who’s declared for the other side so far?
Koster and Watkins for the Rs and Ishmael as an I. Koster is too conservative for the district and Watkins may be too lightweight for the party. My hunch is that a stronger R will enter the race. If not, a D will win…but only if she makes it to the General.
“If Ismael is going to run as an independent, that either means that there is, or will be, a strong R in the race….”
I don’t know…I take Ishmael at his word. He is disgusted by the Ds and the Rs, and is, therefore, running as an I.
@8 Darcy didn’t lose by 7 points in 2008, she lost by 5.56 points. I have a suggestion, next time look up the facts before making a public ass of yourself.
@15 How do you say that Koster is too conservative for the new 1st? Yes, Koster is too conservative … for us at least … but I don’t think so for the district.
Koster lost to Larson by just 2.14% in the old 2nd in 2010. Interestingly, Rossi lost to Murray by an even smaller margin — 1.04% in the same territory.
The new 1st is mostly taken from the old 2nd, after gutting out the most liberal areas of the old 2nd (San Juan, Bellingham, Everett, western Skagit) and putting that into the new 2nd (a very safe district for Larson now). In its place, the new 1st has a large chunk of NE King County — which has been historically Republican, tends to slightly favor Democrats now, but is far less Democratic that the sections of the old 2nd which are still in the new 2nd.
So if you took all of the precincts that are in the new 1st CD, and took the following 2010 election results:
(a) Koster-Larson for the precincts that were in the old 2nd CD
(b) Rossi-Murray for the remaining precincts
I think you would get a GOP Party percentage of at least 51%, probably even 52%, or a little bit higher. And those numbers would be coming from GOP Party challengers running against long-term incumbents (Murray 18 years, Larson 10 years). Those numbers should be at least a percent or two better for an open seat, in comparison with a challenger race.
Also, I have a hunch that the new 10th CD could be winnable by a Republican. Rossi got 47.19% against Murray in 2010 in the old 9th CD, while a way underfunded Dick Muri got 45.15% against the very popular Adam Smith.
This time around, the new 10th CD is basically the old 9th CD, with the deletion of all its King County territory and deletion of a highly Democratic area of Pierce County (both going to the new 9th CD), addition of some reddish Pierce County 8th CD precincts, and addition of a good bit more of Thurston County and some of Mason County (bluish areas, but much less so than the King County areas staying in the new 9th CD).
Rossi got 50.51% against Murray in 2010 in the Pierce and Thurston County precincts of the old 9th CD. So the new 10th CD should definitely be competitive for a Republican, and potentially winnable.
So I think the GOP Party definitely got the edge in redistricting. Democratic voters are extremely heavily concentrated into the new 7th CD, and rather heavily so in the new 9th CD, and to a considerable extent in the new 2nd CD as well. The 4 GOP held districts are all safe already, or made safer (3rd, 4th, 5th and 8th). The two open seats (1st and 10th) are both potentially winnable by GOP’ers, especially the 1st.
Darryl
Biases are not necessarily wrong.
As for whether DL changes biases, I suspect ti does some if only by offering more information and allowing folks to meet pols.
In re SJ, I have learned a lot at DL .. a lot about the politics of downtown Seattle, insights into healthcare (Rebecca), the qualities of professional political staffers, … I have also come to admire Maria C and Patty Murry.
Just wish the food were a bit better.
Richard ..
Richard’s comments about the new 1st strike me as being pretty objective.
It would be utterly horrid if Ruderman, DelBene, and Darcy neutralize each other. Our top two system may not be to everyone’s liking but it is the reality.
I am also skeptical about Darcy’s long term viability in the new 1st. I suspect she is seen as more DC than WA. That District .. even if it goes D this time, needs to elect a D that it identifies with in order to remain D. If she is elected and becomes the Congresswoman from KOS, the R will take the District away from her.
SJ,
“Just wish the food were a bit better.”
Try the salmon risotto.
Richard Pope,
“Koster lost to Larson by just 2.14% in the old 2nd in 2010. Interestingly, Rossi lost to Murray by an even smaller margin — 1.04% in the same territory.”
2010 is the wrong model for the 2012 election, with a presidential election, & numerous high-stakes state-wide offices, and high turn-out. 2010 was a very strong year for Republicans of the Teabagger variety, which Koster seems to be (“never raise taxes”, anti-stimulus, and rhetoric like “runaway government spending”). That stuff won’t be as potent in 2010, particularly without an incumbent to run against.
Finally, Koster is an extreme social conservative—anti-abortion under any circumstance, anti-gay marriage, even against the domestic partnership law now in place. I am pretty certain that those kinds of positions will lose him lots of votes in 2012.
If we imagine the 1st as being formed out of the old 2nd after stripping off much of the liberal parts of the old 2nd, what gets added into it is an even more liberal part of the old 1st (Redmond, parts of Bellevue, Kirkland, Bothel, Woodenville).
I would love to see the precinct-level analysis of the new 1st for key elections in both 2008 and 2010. 2012 should look like something in between those two extremes.
Just a personal note… have met and interacted with both Delbene and Burner, Darcy Burner is by far the stronger personality and better politician.
Delbene is nice and probably good at what she does, but struggled mightily to explain any rationale for her candidacy whatsoever even in one-to-one venues. She got better as the campaign wore on but I think Burner is the one you want in terms of strength of communication alone.
I agree that Darcy is warmer in person.
The problem I see for Darcy is that these “business democrat” issues may conflict with the pro union anti corporate tradition of the netroots.
Over at The Ave I just made an effort to summarize some of the issues I think are unique to this new District. Foremost amongst these is the role the Feds play in hindering WA state as a trading center for the Asia/Pacific region.
Thanks for the info, Darryl. Looks like the First is in safe hands.
Darryl,
I think you made a mistake when you wrote:
They actually wrote:
I think you misread the semi-colon that preceded that statement.
Daniel,
Yep…I did. I’ve updated the post, thanks.
Darryl @ 22
2010 was a very high turnout for an off-year election. Nearly all the voters in 2010 voted for US Senate and US House, since those were the big ticket races.
2012 will of course bring an even higher turnout. But President is the big ticket race this year, and there will be a dropoff of several percent for Governor and Congress (and even more for further down the ticket races).
In total votes for US House in the old 2nd CD (from which most of the new 1st CD is derived), there were 348,467 votes recorded (out of 366,237 ballots cast) in 2008. And in 2010, there were 299,379 votes recorded (out of 311,066 ballots cast).
So 2012 will bring more voters than 2010. The 2012 electorate will probably be more liberal, but not by any major percentage. 2010 was not 1994 — which was a rather low turnout election, with disproportionate conservative turnout. In the 2nd CD back then, 196,526 voted for US House in 1994 (Jack Metcalf-R won by 9.32%), with 256,944 voting for US House in 1996 (Metcalf won by only 0.75%).
Somehow I don’t think that Redmond and Kirkland (added to the new 1st CD) are more liberal than Everett and Bellingham (taken away from the new 1st CD), but I would love to see a precinct level analysis of the removed territory versus the added territory — preferably using a sorta close D-R race like Rossi-Murray 2010.
Koster may be pretty conservative, but he is a strong candidate. Larsen won by over 28 points in 2006, and over 24 points in 2008, but squeaked past Koster by just over 2 points in 2010. So 2012 should prove interesting …
Richard
“In the 2nd CD back (in 2010), 196,526 voted for US House in 1994 (Jack Metcalf-R won by 9.32%), with 256,944 voting for US House in 1996 (Metcalf won by only 0.75%).”
That has been one of the things I have tried to explain to Daryl and others at DL.
The other issue is the di8sconnect between business democrats and progressives. The new district’s dems are, I believe, largely business dems. They will NOT put high priority on the issues that might be big in Seattle or lower Bellevue.
I suspect that the Reps will work to find someone more Romney esque than Koster … a :business Republican.”. A Reublican version of DelBene vs. Darcy would give the election to whoever was more business, all pother issues aside.
I also think Darcy’s mantra that she has been working in DC for Progressive causes is at best a marginal argument. She should have been building local credentials as Ruderman already has and DelBene has been doing.
It seems to me, if Darcy is going to be a winner, she needs to launch a VERY local campaignb, asap. I would start with a Scott Brown-like pickup/camper/motel/church trip throughout the district. Some pics of Darcy along the CA border and expressions about the Northern border issues might be a good place to start.
Of course Darcy in a pick up is a but ridiculous as an image, but a beat up Volvo would be a good alternative.
One thing being overlooked here amongst all the talk of races various candidates lost at one time or another is that Ruderman has wins in her track record, and impressive ones. In the 90s, the 45th state district had been Repub for years, and as an unknown she took on incumbent Bill Backlund and won. This district includes a huge variety in its demographics, so it was no small feat to pull that off, and then get re-elected twice to boot. That district is very similar – not tilting significantly left of right – to the 1st District, the race at hand. I live in both.
Her loss (by 6 points) was in a statewide election, to a moderate incumbent Secretary of State who was generally admired. So that is far less an indicator of her chances in the upcoming race than her ability to campaign and win was prior.