Not for 44 years, since John Spellman defeated Jim McDermott in 1980, has a Republican nominee won the governorship of Washington.
A broader examination of the historical record, however, provides a more balanced perspective.
During the heyday of the New Deal, long before Alaska and Hawaii joined the union, Franklin Roosevelt’s close political adviser and postmaster general, James Farley, quipped that America had “47 states — and the Soviet of Washington.”
But even while left-leaning Washington was supporting FDR and then Harry Truman in the five consecutive presidential elections from 1932 through 1948, it also was electing a moderate Republican governor, Arthur Langlie, in 1940.
Although defeated for re-election in 1944, Langlie reclaimed the office in 1948 and was re-elected in 1952, thereby becoming the state’s first three-term chief executive.
Democrat Albert Rosellini won the governorship in 1956 and was re-elected in 1960. He was confident of another victory in 1964.
This was the year of the famous Lyndon Johnson landslide over Barry Goldwater, which in terms of the popular vote was the most decisive triumph in American presidential history. Although it had preferred Republican war hero Dwight D. Eisenhower over Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and in 1956, and, by a tiny margin, Richard Nixon over John F. Kennedy in 1960, Washington went “all the way with LBJ” in ‘64, granting the Texan 62% of its ballots.
Of the 20 presidential elections since 1940, when FDR defeated Wendell Willkie in Lewis County by a margin of 49.56% to 49.28%, only in ‘64 did Lewis County vote Democratic. Not only that, the preference for Johnson was an astonishing 63.4 %, even greater than the 59.5% in King County.
Nevertheless, Rosellini lost the governorship to moderate Republican Dan Evans, a civil engineer by training and an experienced state legislator, who secured 55.7% of the turnout. The highly regarded Evans was re-elected in both 1968 and in 1972, becoming the second of our three-term governors.
Washington would be better served if the GOP again became a serious contender in statewide affairs. Despite the best of intentions, a government dominated by a single political party is a government likely to decline into arrogance and deceit.
Washington needs a vigorous two-party system. History proves that this is viable.
As a postscript, Albert Rosellini lived to be 101, and at his death in 2011 was the longest-lived American state governor ever. He was a first cousin of Victor Rosellini, whose 610 and Four-10 restaurants in Seattle were among the best in the city and had a national reputation.
Dan Evans, now age 98, was appointed to the U.S. Senate in 1983 to succeed the late Henry “Scoop” Jackson and served until 1989. For many years, he was on the University of Washington Board of Regents and is deservedly regarded as Washington’s preeminent elder statesman.
Joseph Tipler
Centralia
