With Washington Gov. Jay Inslee declining to run for a fourth term in 2024, state Attorney General Bob Ferguson and Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz have announced tentative bids to replace him. Other elected officials are lining up to declare their interest for the two statewide seats they would leave empty. The long-anticipated great reshuffle in Washington politics has begun.
Next year’s governor race will be the first contest for an open seat since 2012, and a lot has happened in America, in politics and in Washington in the past decade.
The election of former President Donald Trump – and the armed attack on the U.S. Capitol four years later – turned progressive parts of Washington state into “the resistance”’ while stirring up a populist, hard-right conservative base. Moderate Republicans, once a hallmark of Washington politics, have melted away, Democrats have consolidated political power. Most – but not all – Washingtonians have weathered the pandemic as well as a racial reckoning after the murder of George Floyd.
The rising polarizations and deepening divisions in the nation have come to make elections feel more consequential, said Crystal Fincher, a political consultant who works on Democratic and progressive campaigns.
