Not Good Enough
It was a forgone conclusion that conservative candidates would lose in King County, and the 2 most important candidates did lose…
King County Executive – Susan Hutchison: 42-57
King County Assessor – Graham Albertini: barely managed 20% in a 5 way race
In contrast to New York city, which is perhaps even more liberal than Seattle and where Democrats haven’t won the mayoralty since 1989, Republicans/conservatives/independents haven’t made any significant inroads in either King County or Seattle city elections in a very long time.
The last Republican mayor of Seattle was J.D. Braman, 1964-69. The last GOP county exec was John Spellman (1969 – 1981), who was coincidentally also the last Republican governor of the state. Even at the federal level, a Republican hasn’t won in the 7th CD since John Cunningham’s brief term in the late ’70s. In fact, K. William Stinson was the last conservative to win that seat for a full term in 1962.
The main problem, of course, is that, while liberals in Seattle have moved even further to the left, Republican moderates have all but disappeared. Either that, or their past is too easily portrayed as being too far to the right. A similar problem manifested itself pretty clearly in today’s GOP loss in the heavily Republican 23rd Congressional District of New York.
