KENNEWICK — Big business donors are pumping beaucoup bucks into Central Washington to sink three Democratic Latinas’ chances of getting elected.
In one such case, a PAC tied to prominent Republicans — and funded by large corporations, like Walmart, Amazon.com and Koch Industries — is spreading stark messages through campaign mailers that Washington Senate hopeful Maria Beltran would “defund the police and make Washington less safe.”
That PAC, People for Jobs, run by pro-business organization Enterprise Washington, has dumped nearly a quarter-million dollars in digital, mail and TV advertisements against Beltran, as well as fellow Democrats Ana Ruiz Kennedy and Chelsea Dimas also running in the 14th Legislative District.
It’s funded by Jobs PAC, also an Enterprise Washington committee, that’s reported $7,500 from Walmart, $35,000 from Amazon.com and $10,000 from Koch Industries this year.
“I don’t support defunding the police and have been clear about that during the entire campaign,” Beltran told the Tri-City Herald this month. “Groups supporting my opponent, Curtis King, are outright lying about my position on public safety. What a shame that King’s supporters feel like they have to lie to win.”
But King, a Republican, says he “can’t control” the messages of outside spenders. He declined to comment when asked if he agreed with the messages.
“We’ve just tried to keep things positive and let voters decide in the end,” he said this week.
Tyler Mason, executive director of Enterprise Washington, points to Beltran’s record as board president of One America during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. In a series of Facebook posts, the immigrant rights nonprofit voiced support for defunding Seattle’s police department by 50% and implementing seismic shifts to the state’s criminal justice system.
One America had also sent a letter to Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and called on the city to commit to “dismantle the current iteration of Seattle’s police department, replacing it with a vision of public safety led by community leaders.”
“More generally, the business community is involved in these races for the same reasons the anti-business community is pumping six figures into them as well: The candidates have clear differences on business issues,” Mason said.
“From public safety, to taxes, to demonstrated pragmatism against extremism, the candidates in these races have widely differing views on things that matter to the business community, and to voters in Central Washington,” he continued.
But Beltran said in a statement she does not and has never supported defunding the police. Anything else, she says, is a “dishonest lie.”
“I will always support law enforcement. We must equip police agencies with the tools and resources they need to hire more officers from the area so that they can do their jobs right and rebuild trust with all communities,” she said.
A pair of television advertisements, paid for by the Washington State Republican Party and released in both English and Spanish, characterized the three Democrats as “Seattle liberals,” who are “too extreme for Central Washington” and don’t support four voter initiatives sponsored by Republicans and the Let’s Go Washington group.
Ruiz Kennedy on Wednesday described the ads as “character assassination” and compared it to a “fear-mongering campaign.”
“If this is how they plan to win an election, is this also how they’re going to govern?” she asked. “We’ve made a deliberate effort to run a clean campaign… These are people’s characters and livelihoods, and we’re not going to do this.”
Race for Washington’s 14th District Heats Up
Races for three seats representing a Central Washington district in the Legislature have caught national attention as Democrats aim to expand their margins in the state House and Senate.
Republicans hold three seats in the 14th Legislative District, but Democrats are eager to flip them after a federal judge redrew Washington’s map of legislative districts to give Yakima Valley Latinos a fairer shot at electing candidates of their choice.
The only incumbent running in the new majority Latino district is King, the four-term Yakima resident who was drawn out of his district but opted to move 1.5 miles away from his previous home so he could run for the Senate seat.
He’s being challenged by Beltran, the Yakima Valley native who’s worked most recently as a deputy director with the House Democratic Campaign Committee.
Their campaigns have raised a combined $1.1 million and spent nearly $775,000.
In the race for Washington House, Dimas faces former Grandview Mayor Gloria Mendoza and Ruiz Kennedy faces accountant and orchardist Deb Manjarrez.
These four candidates have raised about $910,000 and reported $690,000 in expenditures.
Republican candidates received a majority of votes cast in the August jungle primary election, but Democrats are hoping their chances in the general election could deliver them a double-digit swing.
Washington’s 14th Legislative District stretches from the confluence of the Columbia and Snake rivers to the snow-covered peak of Mount Adams. It includes parts of several communities, including Pasco, Finley, Grandview, Sunnyside, Toppenish, Yakima, Goldendale and most of the Yakama Indian Reservation.
Composite voting data from 2016 and 2020 presidential elections shows the district favored Democrats by a margin of 9 percentage points. No public polling has been conducted in any of the three races, however.
Ballots have already gone out to registered voters in Washington’s 39 counties for the Nov. 5 presidential election.
Voters have until 8 p.m. on election day to vote and update their registration in-person at their local county elections department.
Ballot drop boxes close statewide at 8 p.m. on election day. Voters can check the status of their ballot online at votewa.gov.
Big Business’ Six-Figure Spending
Hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising has been spent in the 14th Legislative District in the final weeks of the Nov. 5 general election cycle.
Energy giants, such as Phillips 66 and Marathon Patroleum, as well as other business interest organizations, such as the Building Industry Association of Washington and the Washington Association of Realtors, have contributed piles of cash to the Central Washington race.
Those contributions were registered to Jobs PAC, which in turn funneled the cash to People for Jobs PAC through transfers and contributions.
People for Jobs then used those contributions to facilitate more than $238,000 in expenditures, mostly for mailers benefiting Republicans, video production for TV ads, text messages, websites and other costs.
Protests against police violence erupted around the nation in mid 2020 following the killing of George Floyd, a Black man, while in the custody of Minneapolis police. Among the requests of many protesters was to “defund the police,” or reallocate funds away from police militarization and to other forms of public safety and solving root issues of crime.
But despite its brief support, “defund” efforts never developed into substantial legislation, especially in Seattle. Although, some have tied 2020’s movement to an exodus of cops in the Emerald City’s department.
A rising share of Americans say they want more spending on police officers and public safety in their neighborhoods, according to a 2021 Pew Research poll. About 47% said they wanted to see spending increase and 37% said they wanted to see it stay the same.
