2024 Election Recap: The fight continues on

Despite facing a billionaire and public sector union-funded opposition campaign that spent nearly 5 times as much as the YES campaign, the repeal on Washington’s natural gas ban appears on track for success, with 51.43% support as of votes reported by Nov. 7.

This hard-won success joins three other powerful citizen-led initiatives passed into law by the legislature earlier this year, including increased protections for kids in schools, restored pursuit capabilities of dangerous criminals for law enforcement, and a reaffirmed commitment to an incometax-freepolicy for Washington.

It’s clear Washingtonians are standing up for common sense, prompting an op-ed (penned by a Democrat political consultant, no less) that ran in The Seattle Times titled, “WA’s initiative backers have already won.” These initiatives are a direct message to lawmakers, asserting a need for accountability and a call to step back from extreme legislation.

With these four initiatives, which were signed by more than 1.7 million Washingtonians, we have sent a loud and clear repudiation of radical legislation and forced lawmaker accountability in a way that has never been seen before in our state.

Voters weighed in on 3 other initiatives – allowing opt-out of the long term care tax, repeal of the Climate Commitment Act (CCA), and a repeal of the capital gains tax. Unfortunately, those will not have enough YES votes to pass.

When reporting these results at an election night event, Let’s Go Washington founder and campaign co-chair Brian Heywood struck an optimistic tone, “We begin our fight right here.”

And he’s right. The momentum continues .

During the next legislative session, your continued engagement will be critical. Through consistent action alerts, we’ll empower you to stand up for common-sense policies and resist measures that aim to raise your taxes or the cost of living to serve special interests.

One other critical issue our team is tracking: As we watch our soon-to-be-former Governor Jay Inslee’s next move, we anticipate he’ll step into a lucrative role linked to the unaccountable spending machine he created through the CCA. We’ll be keeping a close eye on him to ensure transparency in his future dealings.

Beyond the initiatives, there were several critically important developments from this election that you might not have heard about:

• As of Nov. 7, the open state Supreme Court seat remains undecided. Experienced judge Dave Larson is in a razor-tight contest with Seattle attorney Sal Mungia, who has no judicial experience. Mungia currently holds a narrow lead of just 0.54% with 86% reporting. We will know more in the coming days when more ballots are counted. This is a race that could shape Washington’s judicial landscape and start to bring some balance to the state’s high court.
• Future 42 is looking forward to having former State Senator and Spokane County Treasurer Michael Baumgartner as a new member of the state’s congressional delegation. One of the key people that helped get Project 42 to what it looks like today was Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers who had the initial vision to create this type of an organization. Congresswoman McMorris Rodgers announcement earlier this year that she would not be seeking another term, created this open seat in the 5^thCongressional District which was won by Michael Baumgartner with 60% of the vote on Tuesday. Michael has also been involved with Project 42 and serves on the board of one of the groups that Project 42 partners with Full Court Press which is recruiting and training judicial candidates. “I’m thrilled  with this resounding victory and I want everyone who believes in the free market and limited government in Washington like those that read the work of Future 42 to know that I intend to be a Congressman for the entire state. I can’t wait to get to work,” said Baumgartner.
• In Snohomish County, voters soundly rejected a countywide public safety sales tax ballot measure by a 13-point margin. This would have raised the countywide sales tax rate by 0.2% and bring in $40 million in additional tax revenue. In addition, two local property tax increase measures which Project 42 opposed were defeated in the August primary. The measures included a 44% levy lid lift in the City of Everett and a new property tax through expanding the boundaries of the Port of Everett. We alerted our Snohomish community about these in advance of the respective elections, and they spoke up loud and clear. The most contested legislative race in the state falls within the 10th LD Senate race, which covers Snohomish, Island, and Skagit counties. In that race, incumbent Republican Senator Ron Muzzall is currently leading Democratic challenger Janet St. Clair by 574 votes.
• LD14 in Eastern Washington was the center of controversy this election cycle when a judge-ordered map, gerrymandered Sen. Nikki Torres out of her own district in what was called “the most partisan choice the judge could have made” by former House Republican Leader J.T. Wilcox. Ironically, this was done to boost Hispanic representation, yet Torres was the first Latina senator elected from Eastern Washington. Despite this, voters appear to be sending small business owners Debra Manjarrez and Gloria Mendoza to the House and incumbent Curtis King (all Republicans) back to the Senate (in his new district). Full coverage from the Center Square is available here.

Thank you, and we look forward to keeping you engaged and bringing in more people to improve our state.