Washington U.S. Senate- Race of the Day

 Washington U.S. Senate

34 Days Until Election Day

Status: Democrat Incumbent

2020 Presidential Result: Blue State (West)

 

Outlook: Likely Democrat

 

There is really no drama over the question of if Senator Maria Cantwell will win a fifth term. She certainly will. I just have had to give a lot of thought as to if I should call this race "Safe" or "Likely." A strong case can definitely be made for the former. However, the Republican challenger is at least somewhat of an appealing candidate who is at least not likely to be seen as overly toxic in deep blue Washington. Unless of course, there is something I am not aware of from half a continent away.

Cantwell never seems to get much national exposure, but she has been in the Senate for over a generation now. Once upon a time, she was a young House Member, who lost her seat in a Republican tide. Then, she made a ton of money in the tech industry boom and used those funds for a successful political comeback at the state level when she beat an incumbent Republican Senator. Likely many dot com millionaire, she wound up losing a lot of that money, but her political career has survived. Cantwell has never really had that difficult of a fight for reelection and also has never been mentioned as any sort of serious candidate for national office. Perhaps, she prefers it that way.

The Gubernatorial race this year in Washington is getting more attention. The Republican candidate against Cantwell started off running for Governor, as he did in 2020, when he finished 5th out of what seems to be 36 candidates in the primary. When former Congressman Dave Reichert got into the 2024 race for Governor though,physician Raul Garcia deferred to him, and ran instead for the U.S. Senate, with the understanding that Reichert and others in the party would back him for that post.

This August, only 11 candidates, of all parties and none, ran in the Senate primary and Garcia managed to finish in second place with 22 percent of the vote. The next three spots went to other Republicans, who were all well under double digits. However, the incumbent Cantwell took 57 percent of the vote to finish first. It is likely she will get right around that total again in November, even if the vast majority of the votes that went to the other candidates will wind up in Garcia's column.

Dr. Raul Garcia, who apparently changed his name to that legally, so that it would appear that way on the ballot was born in Cuba. At the age of 11, he and his mother escaped as refugees to Spain and eventually wound up in Miami, Florida. Somehow along the way, he moved to Washington, and had been an emergency room doctor for 26 years. Also, according to his campaign bio, Garcia helped found two medical schools and a non-profit organization.

These days, no Republican has a real chance to win a federal race or perhaps any sort of high-profile statewide race in Washington, despite large rural swaths of the state that are heavily Republican. The Seattle metropolitan area simply outvotes them. Garcia comes from Yakima, which is well removed from the state's largest urban area. He also is much like Reichert in that he is running as a moderate, pre-MAGA Republican. Both GOP candidates are refusing to support Donald Trump, their party's Presidential nominee. (By my count, there are at least five Republican nominees around the country for Governor and U.S. Senate who are not backing Trump.) Garcia is saying he will work with whomever is elected President, but the outcome in Washington is not in doubt.

Perhaps one day down the road, Garcia could set his sights a bit lower and find a way to advance to a general election in a House district that will favor Republicans in his state. It will be nearly impossible for him to stop Cantwell this year and will almost certainly lose by double digits. If I see an October poll confirming a large gap between the two candidates, I will move my classification.

U.S. Senate races predicted thus far:

20 D  (9 Safe, 5 Likely,  4 Leans, 2 Tossup)

11 R   (5 Safe, 3 Likely, 2 Leans, 1 Tossup)

 

Total with predicted thus far:

48 Democrats (28 Holdover, 9 Safe, 5 Likely, 4 Leans, 2 Tossup)

49 Republicans (38 Holdover, 5 Safe, 3 Likely, 2 Leans, 1 Tossup)