Gov. Jay Inslee will end his third and final term as governor next January, bringing a new head of state government for the first time since 2013.
Will the new boss be the same as the old one?
Attorney General Bob Ferguson, the leading Democratic gubernatorial candidate in polls and fundraising, is endorsed by Inslee and much of the state's ruling coalition of Democratic Party groups and their labor and environmental allies.
His chief Democratic rival, state Sen. Mark Mullet of Issaquah, is casting himself as a common sense alternative who can attract a winning bloc of moderate and independent voters. But he's relatively unknown statewide and faces a steep climb to the governor's mansion.
Months of campaigning lie ahead for the candidates to further differentiate themselves before the Aug. 6 primary, which will feature the Democratic and Republican and any third-party candidates on one ballot. The top two vote-getters, regardless of party, will make it to the November ballot.
In early interviews, Ferguson and Mullet staked out contrasting judgments of the Inslee era and how they would differ if elected to succeed him.
Ferguson is generally reluctant to fault Inslee's policies or management but has made some failings of state agencies — specifically the ferry system — a part of his stump speech.
Mullet bluntly criticizes Inslee and majority Democrats, arguing they've overreached on taxes and other policies. He has expressed support for GOP-backed initiatives on the November ballot that would repeal some signature Inslee accomplishments on taxes and climate.
(The Seattle Times will have more on the leading Republican candidates — former U.S. Rep Dave Reichert and former Richland school board member Semi Bird — in the coming weeks. Republicans have not won a governor's race in Washington in four decades.)
Ferguson, the three-term attorney general, has spent years planning his run while waiting patiently for Inslee to bow out, making him the clear front-runner for 2024.
Speaking at a big December fundraising lunch, Inslee said it had been a tough decision for him not to seek a fourth term. But he said he trusts Ferguson will carry forward his agenda of fighting climate change.
In his early campaign, Ferguson has cast himself as a fighter who will stand up forcefully for abortion rights and to a potential Donald Trump presidency, just as he did in suing the Trump administration 82 times during his first term.
Ferguson said he doesn't think voters are concerned about the state's long streak of Democratic control, or how he'd diverge from Inslee.
"It's not something I've thought about because I really don't get asked about that," he said.
He declined to critique Inslee's decision-making or public handling of major policies, such as the governor's repeated insistence that the new cap-and-trade law would have a minimal effect — "pennies" — on gas prices.
"I'm just not looking back on what the governor said on something, right?" Ferguson said. "It's just a forward-looking deal from my standpoint."
Mullet is plenty willing to criticize Inslee's climate law rollout, arguing the governor "has his head in the sand" about its impact on gas and energy prices. "He's basically telling people right now if you are complaining about the price of gas, you don't care about climate change. And that is a bogus choice," he said.
A business owner and state senator since 2013, Mullet is portraying himself as a bipartisan consensus builder, willing to pull on the reins when he thinks majority Democrats have gone too far. He says Ferguson would continue business as usual in the Capitol.
"Do you just want the exact same direction we are going, which hasn't been good for affordability, hasn't been good for public safety?" he said. "Ferguson is a continuation of that Inslee policy. I have the track record of standing up to my own party when they swing too far to the left."
Mullet credits Inslee for strong stances on some shared issues, such as abortion rights. But the two have a history of political clashes on taxes and spending.
In 2020, Mullet narrowly survived a union-backed primary challenger, endorsed by Inslee, after he voted against a new payroll tax to fund a long-term care insurance program. The long-term care tax faces an initiative challenge on the November ballot.
Mullet says he'll vote for the initiative to make the long-term care tax voluntary — which supporters say would effectively kill the program.
He also plans to vote for the initiative to repeal the state's new capital gains tax on the wealthiest taxpayers, saying it should have been paired with tax cuts elsewhere. And Mullet said he'll also vote for the initiative repealing the cap-and-trade law unless he advances past the August primary, saying the next governor will have a lot of power to shape how much the law costs Washingtonians.
Ferguson opposes all three of the November ballot initiatives, which were sponsored by state GOP chair Jim Walsh and qualified for a public vote thanks largely to a $6 million paid-signature gathering campaign financed by Redmond hedge fund manager Brian Heywood.
In a statement after the recent legislative session, Ferguson did say that more should be done to address "the short-term costs of the Climate Commitment Act," but he prefers to work on changes that would help "working and low-income households."
"Repeal only sets back critical work to protect our clean air and water," he said.
He said that changes legislators made to the long-term care insurance program, including a provision to allow people who move or retire out of state to access benefits are helping to make the law "work better" for people struggling to afford the rising costs of long-term care.
In one signal of a potential shift in governing emphasis from Inslee, Ferguson has called for the creation of a new state department focused on housing, saying that the state's lack of affordable housing is a crisis and that it's the issue he hears the most about when he travels around the state.
While he doesn't second guess his political ally and endorser Inslee directly, Ferguson does have a general critique of state government, saying some state agencies aren't focused enough on serving the public.
"I don't want to be so critical of specific parts of state government, but I feel that there is too much bureaucracy that is not necessarily centering the people of the state of Washington, and a top priority for me when I walk in as governor is to center all of our state agencies on serving people and eliminate that bureaucracy to make life better for the people of the state of Washington," he said.
He has specifically called out the state ferry system, saying he hears from residents frustrated with continual cancellations due to mechanical troubles or a lack of crews.
"Not having ferries run because of staffing issues, that's maddening to people," Ferguson said.
But Ferguson declined to say whether he would have taken a different tack on one related action by Inslee — the decision to force out more than 2,000 state employees, including many ferry system workers, for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccines.
"I'm not looking back over the conversations in the past," he said. "I am not looking back, and I don't think the people are looking back. I think the people are looking forward."
Mullet faults Inslee for insisting on electric hybrid ferries, setting back the replacement schedule. He also said he would have handled COVID-19 pandemic differently when it came to the governor's emergency powers.
"I supported the governor on his decisions up until about November 2020, when he did the second restaurant shutdown. As a restaurant owner, that was really tough," said Mullet, who owns pizza and ice cream shops.
Mullet said Inslee should have called a special session of the Legislature to discuss the longer-term shutdown orders.
Looking ahead to the August primary, Mullet said despite early polling showing him in single digits, he has a path for voters who want some shifts from the Inslee years in a state that is unlikely to go Republican.
"I think in our state, in our current political climate, I am the only one representing reasonable, commonsense policies," he said.
Ferguson, meanwhile, has largely ignored Mullet and looked ahead to a presumed fall matchup with Reichert, in which he said the erosion of abortion rights since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade will take center stage.
"This election will be a choice in November between me and Dave Reichert. That's going to happen. And the good news for the people of the state of Washington is they are going to have a very clear choice," he said.
This is part of a series on the positions and backgrounds of the candidates for Washington governor. For more election coverage, visit st.news/Election2024.
