The Capitol Building is seen Monday, Jan. 8, 2018, in Olympia.
Whether a blue wave of Democratic votes will swamp the state Legislature in the November election is an open question.
One Pierce County House race provides a potential litmus test — the battle between Republican Dick Muri and Democrat Mari Leavitt in Pierce County’s 28th District, an area that includes Lakewood, University Place, Fircrest, Dupont and Steilacoom.
The race is a rerun of 2016, when Muri defeated Leavitt, gaining 52 percent of the vote, nearly mirroring his primary percentage that year.
The litmus-test factor comes from the race’s comparative purity. It hasn’t been marred by scandal or controversy; both candidates agree the race to date has been reasonably clean and free of personal attacks.
“Yeah, we get along well,” Leavitt said. “It’s about issues. I think that’s where races should be. There are party differences, but in our race in the 28th, I don’t think one party has a lock. I’m a Democrat married to a Republican. I think both parties can have good ideas.”
Their resumes haven’t changed. Muri, an Air Force veteran and longtime Steilacoom resident, is an amiable figure — a two-term representative well known to constituents. Previously, he served two terms on the Pierce County Council.
Leavitt, who hasn’t held elective office, is a former deputy director of Pierce County’s human services department. She and her husband live in University Place and own a small orthodontics business. She’s a former chair of Pierce County’s Ethics Commission.
All that was true in 2016, when Muri won the race fairly comfortably. Yet the ground has shifted. In this year’s August primary, Leavitt flipped the script, winning with 53 percent.
What happened?
Muri, 64, points to turnout, especially among women.
“I was told that 55 percent of the people who voted in the primary were women, young women, some who have never voted in primaries,” he said. “We had what we could consider a general election turnout in the primary.”
Leavitt, 50, agrees that turnout and votes from women counted, but she cites another factor: work.
“A tremendous amount of difference in terms of doors touched,” she said, noting that her campaign started earlier this year, with better preparation and clearer focus. “We have a stronger volunteer base, we started significantly earlier, we’ve just been diligent. I’ve been kind of hunkered down in our district.”
Measures such as campaign fundraising show similarities to 2016. That year, Leavitt had raised $266,152 by the time the race ended, nearly tripling Muri, who raised $97,290.
The current race shows similar numbers. As of Friday, Leavitt had raised $206,782 compared to Muri’s $95,268.
Independent expenditures on behalf of the candidates reveal one key point of contrast. In 2016, liberal-leaning PACs backed Leavitt with more than $200,000 in independent spending. Conservative PACs pitched in for Muri that year, spending more than $55,000 against Leavitt.
This year, independent spending for Leavitt has cleared $200,000, much of it from the Democratic New Direction PAC and the Washington Education Association’s PAC.
Meanwhile, Muri isn’t seeing any independent spending at all. Based on his conversations with political allies in state Republican circles, he’s not expecting it.
“They feel that it’s a swing district,” he said. “They said, ‘Dick you’re on your own. We have way too many seats that we’re defending this year to worry about you.’ I’m on my own. They think the 28th is not a high priority. They’re defending seats they didn’t think they had to defend.”
Historically, the 28th district, though sometimes swingy, has leaned Republican, electing conservatives such as Rep. Gigi Talcott and state Sen. Mike Carrell, who died in 2013. Republican Steve O’Ban, a tough conservative, was appointed to Carrell’s Senate seat, and has held it ever since.
This year looks bluer. The primary saw incumbent Democrat Rep. Christine Kilduff cruise home with 58.6 percent of the vote against challenger Maia Espinoza.
What about Leavitt? Precinct results from the August primary show where she made her gains: In her home ground of University Place, she won more than 58 percent of the vote, beating her 2016 tally by six percentage points.
She saw similar gains in Lakewood, a more conservative area and a stronghold for Muri. In 2016, he won 57 percent of the vote in Lakewood precincts. In 2018, he barely cleared 50 percent.
“I went down by about 10 points,” he said. “I think it had a little to do with branding. Nothing I can do about that — that’s state and national level. It’s also the energy we’ve seen across the country in these primaries.”
Muri believes he can overcome the primary deficit. He highlights his history of public service and his key vote for the Legislature’s 2015 transportation package, which included money for local improvements around Joint Base Lewis McChord. He also cites his support for the state’s 2017 reshaping of basic education funding, also known as the McCleary legislation.
“I took the hard vote in 2015 on the transportation package,” Muri said. “To me, that was my number one priority since I’ve gotten elected, number two being McCleary. My opponent kind of implies she would have voted no on those. If that’s the case, she shouldn’t be a state representative.”
Leavitt said she likely wouldn’t have voted for the 2015 transportation package, chiefly because it increased the state gas tax. She believes it affects low-income people disproportionately and matches the point to her overall campaign theme of affordability: for people seeking homes, for veterans seeking social services, for families trying to make ends meet.
She added that she probably would have voted for the McCleary package in spite of misgivings and pointed to the recent Tacoma teachers strike as a consequence of slapdash decision-making.
“It left the Tacoma School District a little upside down,” she said. “In the end I would have voted for a package for McCleary because we had to do something — but it put us in a precarious situation.”
