Posted on 09/02/2015 3:11:29 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued
Republican Rep. Dave Reichert is seriously considering a gubernatorial bid in Washington state, according to multiple GOP sources.
The congressman has been the consistent source of rumors for a statewide bid over the past decade. But those rumors were often fueled by House Democrats who wanted him to leave behind a competitive open seat or Republicans focused on the Senate and governorships.
“This time is the most serious I’ve ever seen him,” Mike Shields, the congressman’s former chief of staff, said. Reichert is considering challenging Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee, the former House member who is running for his second term next year.
Republicans have come close in gubernatorial races before, including Dino Rossi’s razor-thin, 129-vote loss in 2004, but haven’t won a race since 1980, when quarterback Jim Zorn was throwing touchdown passes to future Oklahoma Rep. Steve Largent in the early years of the Seattle Seahawks. Reichert, a former King County sheriff, would give Republicans a legitimate shot at winning next year.
Reichert’s 8th District isn’t as Democratic as it was before the last round of redistricting, but an open seat would be competitive. President Barack Obama won the district 50 percent to 48 percent in 2012 and 51 percent to 47 percent in 2008. Reichert defeated now-Rep. Suzan DelBene, 52 percent to 48 percent, in 2010 under the old lines, but won comfortably in the past two elections.
One source said Rossi, who lost gubernatorial bids in 2004 and 2008 and a Senate bid in 2010, would be a likely candidate for Reichert’s seat, but other candidates from both parties would almost certainly take a look as well.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.rollcall.com ...
Waste of time.
This place is a stinking rathole of leftism.
Reichert would have a real chance of winning. Older locals still remember him as the captor of the Green River Killer.
I was about to say. If one has no will to eject the leftists, then the intent must be to work with them/for them.
RINO of the first order.
All things being equal they should be able to put an un-trained monkey on the ballot against Inslee and win in a landslide.
However the green, leftist, commies from Olympia to Bellingham will control the vote, by any means possible as they showed in the Rossi recount.
Jay “Mumbles” Inslee is the worst governor we’ve ever had.
I think WA state will remain a serious problem for the GOP winning until they switch to off-year elections. The last Republican elected was a RINO bust (who managed to lose in 1984 for a second term), and probably only won because his opponent was the Communist cretin Jim McDermott. The last decent Governor was probably Dixy Lee Ray, the Conservative Democrat predecessor of RINO Spellman’s (she should’ve been a Republican to begin with), whom had beaten Spellman in 1976.
Good point, but Reichert has some star power.
I’ve not seen any polling data on an Inslee-Reichert matchup, but that “star power” may be good for only 45% of the vote.
He could actually win.
McDermott would probably win today. Look for Ed Murray to file as the democrat.
I’ll never waste another vote on Reichert again.
Well, there is that. Have to get past the King County voter fraud.
Even if the alternative was Inslee? Yeah, I know, Reichert is only like 50%-70% conservative, but Inslee is maybe 5% conservative. How will helping Inslee win make your life any better?
Well, no one is saying that Reichert would be the favorite, but he definitely has a decent chance of winning the governorship, something that one could not say about many other WA Republicans. Plus, by running for governor, it would open up his (since 2012 redistricting) GOP-leaning House seat, thus allowing a more conservative Republican to go to Congress. So it’s a win-win for conservative Republicans. (If you recall, I wanted Reichert to run for the U.S. Senate the past couple of cycles for the same reason.)
After McKenna lost I thought “Well F88K, are we ever gonna win this?”. And he didn’t even have to worry about third parties, the Libertarian cost Dino Rossi.
I think DJ’s right, POTUS years, those bastards out there aren’t ticket splitting enough. I wish Missourians would take a page from them, there would be no rats in statewide office there.
But he’d be as strong candidate as any and as AuH says we’d likely get an upgrade to take his place in Congress.
To the “but he’s a stinky RINO” crowd I’d say, they’ve had communists for the past 30 years, he doesn’t smell that bad.
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