Republican Travis to run against Stanford rather than McAuliffe

Published 8:06 pm Friday, February 24, 2012

Republican Brian Travis says that he will run against democratic state Rep. Derek Stanford rather than against democratic state Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe.

Travis registered the change with the State Public Disclosure Commission this week.

He had registered with the PDC in early January as a candidate for the 1st Legislative District Senate seat that McAuliffe now holds.

Travis said Friday that he made the change because Independent Senate candidate Guy Palumbo, who also has registered his intent to challenge McAuliffe, is a ”well-respected businessman and fiscal conservative,” adding, “I choose not to divide the fiscal conservative vote.”

Rather, he said, he could be most effective in a race for state representative and said that a race against first-term Rep. Stanford was better than a challenge to the 1st Legislative District’s other freshman Democratic representative, Luis Moscoso, “from a financial and demographic position.“

Registration with the PDC allows candidates to raise and spend money for the August primary and November general election.

Palumbo has raised $28,690 to $4,350 for McAuliffe. Stanford has raised $17,607 to none for Travis.

Moscoso, who has no announced opponent, has raised $14,715.

Candidates file for ballot positions May 14-18.

The 1st Legislative District now includes Brier, Bothell, Woodinville, most of Mountlake Terrace, a small part of Edmonds and unincorporated areas of both Snohomish and King counties, but, with redistricting, will include less of Mountlake Terrace and none of Edmonds but will stretch south to Kirkland.

Evan Smith can be reached at schsmith@frontier.com.