Clean Sweep

Washington State's Secretary of State, Kim Wyman, has been hired to be election security lead for the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. I have to admit that I'm a bit disappointed by this. I liked Secretary Wyman, and was hoping that she'd run for Congress, or maybe Governor (not that I'm sure she'd have won; the state hasn't had a Republican governor since the mid-1980s). But instead, she's off to the Biden Administration, and while I wish her the best in her new role, that does leave the state without any Republicans in statewide office.

And I have a sinking feeling that I know what that means.

During the last Governor's race, the Republican Candidate, Loren Culp, had little going for him other than not being Governor Inslee. Other than that he was basically a Trumpist no-hoper. The fact that he managed to outperform the former President's numbers means that he had a bit of support from outside of President Trump's base, but despite that, the race wasn't even close. Mr. Culp's insistence that he'd lost due to voting irregularities made him look like someone who hoped to ride the Trumpist bandwagon, rather than a serious candidate.

I have a bit of worry that this is the kind of candidate that the Republican Party will run for the next Secretary of State election. On the one hand, it makes sense that this is what they would wind up doing. After all, there are a fair number of Trumpist Republicans in Washington, and so it's likely that a fellow Trumpist will be the only one with a chance of surviving the primary. Of course, the top-two primary system complicates things somewhat, but it's unlikely that the Democrats will allow themselves to wind up in a position where they have no-one on the podium. And pretty much any Democrat is going to beat a Trumpist Republican, leaving Washington effectively a one-party state for state government.

Which is far from the worst thing in the world, but I'd rather a bit more of a mix to elected officials. But I'm not a Trumpist, and if the past few years have shown me anything it's that those who are Trumpists don't care what I think.