U.S. Rep. Denny Heck speaks during a rally in Olympia in February 2019.
With less than three months before the primary election, campaign dollars and big-name endorsements are shaping the race to succeed U.S. Rep. Denny Heck and could foreshadow how the field will be narrowed.
The three candidates for the 10th Congressional District seat who have showed the most fundraising prowess are former state Rep. Kristine Reeves of Federal Way, former Tacoma Mayor Marilyn Strickland, and state Rep. Beth Doglio of Olympia. The three also have announced major endorsements in recent weeks.
Besides paying staff, placing ads, and beefing up social media strategies, campaign dollars can demonstrate that a candidate is competitive, said Mark Stephan, an associate professor of political science at Washington State University’s Vancouver campus. Endorsements can help voters choose among multiple candidates in their preferred political party and also sway independents, he added.
In the March presidential primary, 135,774 voters in the 10th Congressional District chose the Democrats as their party preference and 65,720 declared themselves as Republicans. The district covers nearly all of Thurston County, most of Pierce County and a portion of Mason County.
There are 12 candidates in the race — five Democrats and seven Republicans — and the major question is whether two Democrats will square off in the general election or if Republican voters in the primary can lift a little-known GOP candidate into the top two slots.
“The number of candidates adds a whole bunch of uncertainty,” said Todd Donovan, a political science professor at Western Washington University in Bellingham.
The most recent campaign finance numbers cover January through March of this year, and also last year if candidates were in the race. The report covering April through June will be filed in mid-July, less than three weeks before the field will be reduced to the top two vote-getters in the Aug. 4 primary.
Reeves had raised the most at $274,058 and spent $73,990, leaving her campaign with a balance of $200,068.
“It’s a validation that I’m the right person to do this work; that I’m the best candidate in this race to represent working families across this district,” she said.
Strickland collected $251,651 and spent $102,505, with cash on hand of $149,146.
Doglio had the largest fund balance because she spent the least of the top-tier candidates at $20,167. She raised $239,639, leaving her with a balance of $219,471. She entered the race on Feb. 29, compared to early January for Reeves and December for Strickland.
On Monday, a week after Reeves announced that her campaign had raised the most funds, she trumpeted an endorsement from the National Education Association political action committee. The PAC picked her based on a recommendation from Washington Education Association members. She also has won endorsements from Teamsters Joint Council No. 28 and the Laborers’ International Union of North America.
Doglio also made a big splash on Monday, announcing that U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Seattle, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus political action committee had endorsed her. Jayapal is a co-chair of the PAC. Doglio also has landed several labor endorsements, including the Washington Federation of State Employees and United Food and Commercial Workers 21.
“I’m proud to have the endorsements of our grocery store workers and nurses and firefighters and a lot of working people in the district that I’m going to go to Congress and fight for,” she said.
Late last month, Strickland announced that former governors Christine Gregoire and Gary Locke had endorsed her, along with former U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks.
“These are really people who are well-respected and trusted leaders who know me, who know my work, and really believe I’m the best person to go to Congress, especially at this time when we’re going to be managing out of an economic crisis,” she said.
She’s also endorsed by the American Federation of Government Employees Local 1504, Tacoma Mayor Victoria Woodards, and former Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg.
Both Reeves and Strickland live outside the district, but have said they plan to move within its boundaries. Strickland lives in downtown Tacoma and has a power base in the city. Reeves is a King County resident who served in the state House in a legislative district that includes part of the 10th Congressional District.
Based on campaign fundraising, a second tier of candidates has emerged. They also have rolled out endorsements that could help them bolster their campaigns.
Joshua Collins, a socialist who is running as a Democrat, raised $205,823, but spent $135,992. His campaign had a balance of $68,185. Collins filed a form in April 2019 with the Federal Election Commission declaring his candidacy.
Collins said he’s running a different type of campaign than the other candidates, with an emphasis on social media where voters can interact with him. He recently tweeted that he wished he and his backers could campaign door-to-door but added it’s “hilarious that I happen to be in the one election in history where web presence is this important.”
On Friday, he said in an interview: “I’m not going to win this race from Twitter posts, but it is really, really helpful. It’s a giant advantage in a time when you cannot knock on doors, or pay people to knock on doors. We’re still able to raise money and when it comes closer to the election, we’ll probably get a large surge in donations.”
Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant, also a socialist, endorsed Collins on April 15.
Phil Gardner, a former district director for Heck, had $66,156 funds on hand after raising $108,823 and spending $42,667.
On Monday, Gardner announced he had received the endorsement of Equality PAC, the political action committee formed by leaders of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus.
Gardner on Friday provided a copy of a memo that a campaign aide prepared that predicts Doglio likely will be one of the top two vote-getters in the primary, and it will be a Democrat versus Democrat race in the general election. The memo said Gardner is the “best positioned Democrat to win Pierce County voters.” The strategy memo sent Monday to Gardner’s backers said his campaign needs to raise nearly $400,000 in the next three months.
Not surprisingly, the memo touts “his compelling personal narrative: an unmatched record of federal service alongside Congressman Heck, deep roots in Pierce County, and a unifying message of generational change in a county with a long history of electing young people.”
Of the seven Republican candidates in the race, Nancy Dailey Slotnick raised the most by far, collecting $27,489 and spending $23,161, for a balance of $4,523.
Slotnick said it’s proven difficult to raise money during the new coronavirus pandemic because many of what she considers her Republican constituencies, such as small businesses and construction firms, are struggling.
“Everything about fundraising during this (pandemic) feels a little tone deaf when you know that people may have just lost their job or the people who historically would be the bigger donors might be dealing with whether or not their business is surviving or whether or not their stock portfolio just crashed,” she said.
In the last three elections with Heck, a Democrat, as the incumbent, Republican candidates finished second in the primary but there was only one GOP candidate on the ballot. In fact, Slotnick ran in 2018 under the banner of the Independent Centrist Party and placed a distant fourth.
Heck won all three general elections, but GOP candidates received between 38 percent and 45 percent of the vote.
Slotnick, who said h
