SEATTLE — How does a conservative get elected in famously liberal Seattle? Stripping party labels off the ballot and declining to call yourself a Republican is a good place to start. Having great name recognition as a longtime television news anchor doesn’t hurt, either.
That’s the playbook so far for Susan Hutchison, former KIRO-TV anchor and current director of the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences, as she takes the lead in the race for King County executive, the top elected official in the state’s most populous county.
“I am not any member of a political party,” Hutchison declared in an appearance on Seattle public radio station KUOW this week. She simultaneously agreed that people could judge her by the more than $15,000 she’s given to Republican candidates and causes in the last several years — and by the absence of any to Democratic ones.
Hutchison declined interview requests from the Associated Press.
Recent polling has shown Hutchison to have a commanding lead heading into the Aug. 18 primary, with 39 percent supporting her and 35 percent splitting their support among her four main Democratic rivals. The top two vote-getters advance to the November general election.
Thanks in large part to Seattle itself, the county, which stretches east to the crest of the Cascade Mountains, is predominantly liberal. Barack Obama carried 70 percent of the vote last November.
Washington doesn’t register voters by party, but state and federal campaign finance records show that Hutchison has donated more than $15,000 to Republican candidates and causes, including the presidential campaigns of Mike Huckabee and George W. Bush.
Last year, Hutchison was a prominent supporter of a campaign to make the executive’s office nonpartisan. The effort succeeded, so party affiliation is no longer listed on the ballot.
“She won’t have to carry the Republican label, and she’ll benefit from that” — especially in the primary, before people really start paying attention, said Matt Barreto, a University of Washington assistant professor of political science.
“At the same time, partisan leanings eventually become very well known,” he added. “Whichever challeneger emerges, they will make it clear that Hutchison is a Republican.”
Hutchison has played up the nonpartisan aspect of the office by declining to discuss social issues or call herself a Republican in interviews and in campaign literature.
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