The withdrawal of John Boerger’s challenge to Republican state Rep. Mike Hope leaves 44th Legislative District Democrats in a difficult position.
Boerger announced last week that he was withdrawing as a candidate for the position that Hope now holds.
Since the announcement came a week after the withdrawal deadline, Boerger’s name will stay on the primary ballot.
With Boerger and Hope the only names on the ballot, both probably will qualify for the general election ballot. As long as Boerger is one of the top two vote getters and gets at least 1 percent of the vote, he would qualify for November. If he does qualify, there’s no provision to withdraw from the general election ballot.
That hurts Democrat hopes for regaining the seat that Hope won in 2008 with 50.05 percent of the vote after a recount.
The best chance for Democrats now is to find a credible write-in candidate.
If that write-in candidate can outpoll Boerger in the primary, he or she can qualify for the general election ballot to run against Hope.
First, that write-in candidate would have to file with the county auditor’s office as a registered write-in candidate by paying the $421.06 filing fee and listing his or her party preference. That means that the registered write-in candidate’s votes will be counted even with slight misspellings or without a party listing.
To get through the primary, the Democratic write-in candidate would need lots of money to convince potential Democratic voters to vote for a write-in rather than for the name on the ballot.
The 44th District includes Mill Creek, Snohomish and Lake Stevens.
Nasty politics in the 21st District
Politics among candidates for state representative in the 21st District got nasty in May when Republican candidate Alan Tagle accused Democratic incumbent Marko Liias of posting websites attacking both Tagle and Republican candidate Elizabeth Scott.
Liias denied it, pointing out that the attacks were not the kinds of things that a Democrat would say about Republicans, and saying that Tagle could have cleared up the dispute by simply calling him.
Scott and Republican officials both pointed out that the timing and the source of the Web postings indicated that Tagle was himself responsible for the websites.
One site attacks Scott as a “carpetbagger” from out of state whose tea party views are far from the 21st District mainstream. The other site points out that Tagle runs a bikini coffee stand.
Evan Smith can be reached at schsmith@verizon.net
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