Anyone who runs for Washington governor can get 42% by pasting an “R” after his name. If he has anything on the ball he might get 45% (Seattle Port Commissioner Bill Bryant in 2016) or even 48% (Attorney General Rob McKenna in 2012). However, the base Republican vote in Washington is 42%.
A sea lion that ran for governor as a Republican would get 42%. That’s just the way it is. In Washington, 4 out of 10 voters would rather vote for a sea lion than a Democrat, even though sportsmen hate sea lions because they eat salmon. What I’m saying is they’d shoot the sea lion and vote for it, maybe on the same day.
So how is Loren Culp, a political novice, doing against Jay Inslee, a former congressman and incumbent two-term governor? Well, Culp did crush Tim Eyman in the primary, even though Eyman had better name statewide recognition, in part due to his recent arrest for taking a chair from an office supply store without paying for it.
Culp is a constitutionalist. This appeals to some people, although not a lot of people. That’s a somewhat specialized political demographic. He wants to manage a state government with 68,000 employees. His prior management experience consists of being the police chief in a town with one police officer — him. He seems like a decent enough guy, former Army drill instructor, comes across as affable, apart from being sued by a child sex abuse victim (story here).
He ought to get 42%. Heck, if a sea lion can get 42%, he can too. He has that precious “R” after his name, wrested away from Tim Eyman. He’s also raised $2.5 million in mostly small donations. At least that’s what he said in this week’s debate.
There’s not a lot of polls in this race. In fact, I found only one, a KOMO-4 TV poll in early September that has Inslee 53%, Culp 37%. Wait, what? Culp is 5 points behind a hypothetical sea lion?
Not so fast. Adding 53% + 37% you get 90%. Where’s the other 10%? My source doesn’t explain, but that must be undecideds, or maybe people who are lying. Let’s assume half of these, or 5%, are voters who won’t admit being Republicans for whatever reason, and the other 5% won’t vote for Culp for whatever reason. Now you have Inslee 58%, Culp 42%.
See? I called it. Culp’s right in there with a sea lion.
I don’t know how he’d do in a head-to-head matchup with a sea lion in a primary, though. I don’t have a poll for that.
Photo: Meet your 2024 Republican candidate for Washington governor! He wants donations of fish, not dollars, to his campaign.
Clearly a few folks think a sea lion can do a better job than the current governor. maybe the missing 10 percent really are sea lions, and the pollster didn’t make it to the beaches.