Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson (D) defeated former U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert (R), extending Democrats’ four-decade lock on the governor’s office.
Ferguson will replace three-term Gov. Jay Inslee (D), who opted not to run for a fourth term.
Long viewed as Inslee’s heir apparent, Ferguson focused his campaign on issues including public safety, shoring up Washington State’s aging ferry boat fleet and protecting abortion rights.
He won backing from labor unions, tribes and several newspaper editorial boards, including the Seattle Times.
Reichert, who is also a former elected sheriff, emphasized his law enforcement credentials and tried to cast Ferguson as weak on crime.
“I think it’s clear that I’m the only public safety candidate in this race,” Reichert said in their first debate.
“I will take no lectures from you about public safety when you are voting for and supported a convicted felon for president,” Ferguson responded.
Reichert said at the debate that he was not supporting former President Donald Trump, although he appeared to indicate otherwise before a group of Republican voters in March.
Ferguson repeatedly sought to tie Reichert to Trump, who is unpopular in Washington State. He also consistently attacked Reichert for his votes to restrict abortion access while in Congress.
While Ferguson emerged early as the Democratic frontrunner, Reichert struggled to secure the Republican base after losing his party’s endorsement to a more conservative candidate at the state GOP convention in April.
Reichert, who was a no-show at the convention, still managed to place second in the state’s top-two primary in August. But his fundraising never caught up to Ferguson’s who raised $14 million to Reichert’s $6.7 million, according to campaign finance reporting.
Ferguson also benefited from more than $8 million in outside spending aimed at opposing Reichert who got scant help from the cash-strapped Washington State Republican Party and no apparent help from the Republican Governors Association.
On the campaign trail, Ferguson, an internationally rated chess master, burnished his credentials as a three-term attorney general who sued the Trump administration 99 times and won all but three cases.
Reichert struggled to sell his candidacy in a state where no Republicans currently hold statewide office and where a third of the state’s votes are found in the populous Puget Sound region, which favors Democrats.
As Washington’s 24th governor, Ferguson will inherit a housing and homelessness crisis, an ongoing fentanyl crisis and an increasingly tight fiscal climate that may require belt tightening. Ferguson will have the advantage of working with a legislature controlled by fellow Democrats.
This story has been updated to reflect the latest campaign finance numbers.