Tag Archives: Gov. Jay Inslee

RFK Jr. Continues Strong Challenge to President Biden; Ramaswamy Still in It; Donnelly Won’t Run for Governor; AG Leads Gov Race in WA

By Jim Ellis — Thursday, June 15, 2023

President

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: New Polls — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continues to mount a challenge to President Joe Biden, and three new Democratic primary polls were recently released, two national and one in California, providing new benchmarks. While Kennedy is not even within shouting distance of the president in any of the polls, they do, however, again largely show that the incumbent is not universally accepted within his own party.

The Issues & Insights TIPP poll (May 31-June 2; 1,230 registered voters likely to vote in a Democratic primary; online) finds President Biden topping Kennedy, 68-12 percent, with four percent going to author Marianne Williamson. The Suffolk University poll conducted for USA Today (June 5-9; 293 likely Democratic primary voters) projects Biden with only 58 percent support, while Kennedy captures 15 percent and Williamson six percent. Emerson College sampled the California electorate (June 4-7; 1,056 registered California voters; multiple sampling techniques) and posts President Biden with a 72-17-7 percent advantage over Kennedy and Williamson in the Golden State primary.

While President Biden is secure for renomination, Kennedy is exceeding expectations in the early states, which might place him in position to run on the No Labels Party ticket that may be formed in April of next year.

Vivek Ramaswamy: Not Dropping Out — Media reports surfacing earlier this week that Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy was going to announce he was withdrawing from the race and endorsing former President Donald Trump at his Tuesday morning news conference in Miami proved erroneous. While Ramaswamy, who is well on his way to securing a debate podium at the first Republican presidential debate on Aug. 23, did not suspend his campaign, he did become the first candidate to say he would pardon Trump if elected president.

Governor

Indiana: Ambassador Donnelly Won’t Run for Governor — A former campaign manager for, and longtime associate of US ambassador to the Holy See Joe Donnelly (D) said speculation that Donnelly would return to Indiana to run for governor next year is false. The ambassador of the United States to the Holy See is the official representative of the United States of America to the Holy See, the leadership of the Catholic Church. The spokesperson indicated that the ambassador will continue to serve in his present post and not become a political candidate in 2024.

Prior to accepting the ambassadorship, Donnelly represented Indiana in both the House and Senate. He served three terms in the House before being elected senator in 2012. He was defeated for re-election in 2018. There was further speculation suggesting if he would return to Indiana to run for governor and that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) would be appointed as the replacement ambassador.

Washington: AG Leads Open Gov Race — Public Policy Polling, surveying for the Northwest Progressive Institute (released June 9; 773 registered Washington voters), finds Attorney General Bob Ferguson (D) leading the jungle primary with 25 percent support. Republican physician Robert Garcia is second with 17 percent backing followed by Richland School Board member Semi Bird (R) at 10 percent. Democrats Hillary Franz, the Public Lands Commissioner, and state Sen. Mark Mullett (D-Issaquah) trail with nine and eight percent, respectively.

Ferguson claims to operate his early campaign as an “exploratory committee,” but Washington has no such legal designation. Therefore, technically, Ferguson is an announced candidate as are the others. Gov. Jay Inslee (D) is not seeking a fourth term next year. The jungle primary is scheduled for Aug. 6, 2024. The top two finishers, regardless of political party affiliation and percentage attained will advance into the general election.

VA Gov. Youngkin Officially Says No; Maryland Sen. Cardin to Retire;
Rep. Allred Indicating Texas Senate Candidacy; NH Mayor Setting Sites on Governorship; Gov. Inslee to Retire

By Jim Ellis — Wednesday, May 3, 2023

President

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R)

Gov. Glenn Youngkin: Officially Says No — Verifying stories that had surfaced last week, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) at an appearance in California Monday confirmed that he will not be running for president in 2024. Clearly, the governor, serving his only four-year term allowable under Virginia law, was testing the national political waters but obviously does not perceive himself to have a viable victory path. (A Virginia governor can serve two terms, but not consecutively; only two governors in the history of the state served two non-consecutive terms.)

With former President Donald Trump dominating recent GOP nomination polling and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis a definable second, there is little room for a second-tier candidate to move to the top. Thus, the chance of this race evolving into a Trump vs. DeSantis national primary campaign continues to grow.

Senate

Maryland: Sen. Ben Cardin to Retire — Veteran Maryland officeholder Ben Cardin (D) announced that he will not seek a fourth US Senate term next year, retiring after serving what will be a storied 58 consecutive years in elective office when combining his time in the state legislature, the US House of Representatives, and Senate. He made the announcement Monday.

We can expect to see a spirited battle forming to succeed Sen. Cardin in the Democratic primary. With Republicans having little chance to win a Maryland statewide Senate race in a presidential election year, especially with their best potential candidate, former two-term Gov. Larry Hogan, already saying he will not run, the real battle will be in next year’s Democratic nomination process.

US Reps. John Sarbanes (D-Baltimore), son of former Sen. Paul Sarbanes, David Trone (D-Potomac), and Jamie Raskin (D-Takoma Park), along with Prince Georges County Executive Angela Alsobrooks are all potential Senate candidates. Cardin is the third senator to announce retirement plans. He follows Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) who earlier made their intentions public.

Texas: Rep. Allred Moving Toward Senate Announcement — Democratic leaders have been making a play to recruit three-term US Rep. Colin Allred (D-Dallas), a former NFL football player, to challenge Sen. Ted Cruz (R) next year. It appears their efforts will be successful. Though gaining a safe Democratic seat in 2021 redistricting, Rep. Allred appears poised to enter the Senate race as early as this week.

While Rep. Allred is likely the strongest potential candidate among the Texas Democratic possibilities, Sen. Cruz would remain favored to win a third term, particularly in a presidential year where Texas again would be expected to support the Republican nominee. Still, the Allred candidacy will make this Senate contest much more competitive, and Texas would become the Democrats’ top national conversion target.

Governor

New Hampshire: Democrat Files Gubernatorial Exploratory Committee — Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig (D), who has already announced that she will not be seeking re-election next year, announced the filing of a gubernatorial exploratory committee on Monday.

Gov. Chris Sununu (R), only the second Granite State chief executive to serve four consecutive terms in office could run for a fifth two-year term. Most believe that he will retire, however, and could well enter the presidential campaign as a favorite son from the first-in-the-nation primary state. It had been speculated upon for several months that Mayor Craig would make the jump into the 2024 gubernatorial campaign.

Washington: Gov. Jay Inslee to Retire — Evergreen State Gov. Jay Inslee (D), a former congressman and presidential candidate, announced yesterday that he will not seek a fourth term in office saying that “it is time to pass the torch.”

Lt. Gov. Denny Heck, Attorney General Bob Ferguson, and state Land Commissioner Hilary Franz are all potential Democratic candidates. Former US Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler is the Republican attracting the most attention as a potential GOP contender. Democrats will be favored to maintain the office, but a Republican advancing from the all-party jungle primary is also a likelihood.

With Beto Out … Will the Rest
of the Dominoes Start to Fall?

Beto O’Rourke | Facebook Photo

By Jim Ellis

Nov. 5, 2019 — Former US Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) ended his presidential campaign Friday, joining Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), ex-Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, US Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, and US Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) as 2020 national contenders who are no longer in the race.

O’Rourke’s concession statement made reference to departing because he no longer possesses adequate resources with which to compete. Beginning as a top tier candidate with a strong financial base, his effort rapidly crumbled largely due to ill-advised comments, poor debate performance, and calling for assault weapon confiscation, which did not reinvigorate his campaign as he expected. O’Rourke had hoped to use the latter issue to begin cracking into the party’s far-left faction that Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) seemingly have cornered.

Democratic leaders had from the outset attempted to persuade O’Rourke to challenge Texas Sen. John Cornyn (R) instead of running for president, but they were ignored. In his statement announcing the end of his national campaign, the former congressman addressed the speculation that he might return to Texas to challenge Cornyn, but again ruled out running for that office or any other in 2020.

How does the Democratic race change now that O’Rourke has departed? Largely, his move could be a precursor of many more exits to come. At this point, it is clear three candidates occupy the top tier and separation exists between them and the rest of the pack. Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sens. Warren and Sanders maintain the top three positions in virtually every poll, and it is reasonable to expect that one of them will eventually become the Democratic nominee.

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg has recently made a resurgence after lagging in single digits since the second nationally televised debate in July. Concentrating on fundraising and organization, Buttigieg’s efforts have proven worthwhile. Raising $19.1 million just in the third quarter, placing him behind only Sanders ($25.3 million raised in Quarter 3) and Warren ($24.6 million) during that period, the mid-size city mayor has brought in over $51.5 million since the onset of his presidential campaign.

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Inslee Bows Out of Presidential Race

By Jim Ellis

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D)

Aug. 23, 2019 — The Democratic National Committee leaders’ strategy to substantially increase the presidential debate qualification requirements in order to decrease the unwieldy and bloated candidate field is working.

The prerequisites to prove that a campaign has more than 130,000 donors and that each candidate reaches a minimum of two percent support from four of eight designated pollsters paid another dividend Wednesday as Washington Gov. Jay Inslee became the third Democratic candidate to officially exit the race.

Not making the debate stage signifies that a candidate has no chance to become a top-tier candidate. Without national exposure, also-ran candidates have little opportunity to increase name identification and familiarity in order to raise enough money to deliver a message, motivate people to work on their campaign, and attract serious media attention both nationally and in the important local markets within key states.

Inslee follows Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper in making the decision to bow out of the race, and there are likely to be several more following suit once it becomes even more evident that the lower-tier candidates will no longer have the opportunity to climb onto the national debate stage.

Gov. Inslee, in an interview on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” Wednesday, stated ” … it’s become clear that I’m not going to be carrying the ball. I’m not going to be the president, so I’m withdrawing tonight from the race.” He is expected to announce that he will seek a third term as Washington’s governor.

The Inslee withdrawal is not a surprise to anyone, apparently even to the candidate himself. He remained non-committal about ruling out running for a third gubernatorial term, which froze most of the Washington Democratic potential aspirants in place. The rhetoric blocked them from overtly assembling a statewide campaign since most correctly interpreted the political tea leaves as meaning that Inslee would, in fact, be back to seek re-election.

With 10 candidates now qualified for the next debate since former HUD Secretary Julian Castro just joined the top-tier candidates of Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Pete Buttigieg who are also joined by Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), ex-Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX), and businessman Andrew Yang, it remains to be seen just how many of those who won’t meet the qualifications will continue.

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Poll: Biden Falling

By Jim Ellis

July 2, 2019 — The Morning Consult organization immediately went into the field after the second night of the Democratic presidential forum (June 27-28; 2,407 US self-identified Democratic registered voters) and found that former Vice President Joe Biden’s support slipped, at least as an immediate reaction to what is commonly viewed as his poor debate performance, while Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), evaluated as performing quite well, gained.

The MC data still finds Biden in first place, but down five points from their previous survey. On June 23, just three days before the first forum, Biden led Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), 38-19 percent while Sen. Harris lagged at six percent support. Just after the debate, when completing the poll on June 28, Biden dropped to 33 percent, but Sanders remained constant at the 19 percent level. Conversely, Sen. Harris doubled her past support to 12 percent.

MORNING CONSULT POLL RESULTS:

Click on above graphic to go to complete Media Consult poll results story.

In the Morning Consult survey, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) also posted 12 percent support, which was virtually on par with her standing in their June 23 poll when she recorded 13 percent preference. South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who actually scored well on the second debate night, had a similar result to Sen. Warren. While he was polling seven percent on the June 23 poll, he basically remained constant one week later, dropping to six percent on the MC June 28 survey.

Former Texas representative, Beto O’Rourke, who was dogged with poor debate reviews from his first night performance, also dropped in the Morning Consult polling. Before the forum, O’Rourke was only in the four percent range, and after, even lost half that support base, dropping to two percent.

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Debates Begin; Some Polls Tighten

By Jim Ellis

June 28, 2019 — Several polls were released just before the presidential debate series began and we see some inconsistency. Former Vice President Joe Biden leads in the most recent national surveys, but by varying margins.

The closest poll comes from YouGov (June 22-25; 522 likely US Democratic primary voters) and finds Biden’s lead over Sen. Elizabeth Warren to be 24-18 percent. In a close third place is Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders with 15 percent.

All other candidates are in single digits. Those who have been experiencing a recent downward trend, Sen. Kamala Harris, and ex-Rep. Beto O’Rourke, again posted poor support scores, this time seven and three percent, respectively. South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg has been polling inconsistently in recent surveys. Here, we see downward movement, as he registers only five percent support, a polling range that has also been detected in other late June polling.

YouGov also finds two of the lower-tier candidates performing a bit better in this survey. Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard reaches three percent national support, and Sen. Cory Booker posts two percent support. All others are at one percent or below.

But the Morning Consult data, with a much larger survey sample, tells a much different story. Their poll (June 19-26; 7,150 likely US Democratic primary voters via automated response device) detects a much larger Biden lead. The results find the former vice president at 35 percent support with Sen. Sanders in second place – as he has been in most national polls – with 18 percent, and Sen. Warren in third at 12 percent. Like in the YouGov poll, only the top three finishers posted double-digit support numbers.

The lower tier is very similar to the YouGov results sans Gabbard. They find Sen. Harris (six percent), Mayor Buttigieg (six percent), O’Rourke (four percent), and Sen. Booker (three percent) comprising a second tier. All the rest are at one percent or less.

The HarrisX survey (June 24-26; 892 self-identified Democratic registered voters) brandished a middle-sized sample with commensurate results. HarrisX also finds Biden leading the Democratic race, but his 29 percent support factor falls virtually evenly between what was found in YouGov and Morning Consult.

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Democrat Debate Friction


By Jim Ellis

June 10, 2019 — The Politico publication ran a story late last week detailing building friction between the Democratic National Committee and Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, a late-entering Democratic presidential candidate, over the committee leaders apparently axing the western governor from the first debate forum coming later this month.

The source of controversy is the party leadership contending that Gov. Bullock, who looked to have qualified for the debate under the outlined criteria, now has not. Instead, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is in position to capture the 20th and final debate podium for the upcoming June 26-27 candidate forums from Miami.

As we have previously reported, the qualifications the party leaders have placed upon the candidates require them to either build a fundraising organization of 65,000 donors, with a minimum of 200 coming from 20 states, or score one percent support in at least three surveys from eight designated pollsters.

Gov. Bullock appeared to have met the polling requirement. He exceeded the one percent threshold in the ABC/Washington Post survey in January. But, the DNC is now disallowing this particular poll, and the action probably eliminates him from the debate.

Their reasoning is that the ABC/Post poll asked an open-ended presidential ballot test question — that is, where the names of the candidates are not read, but the respondents must voluntarily state a name. This type of question is usually employed to test hard name identification and candidate strength.

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