House Republicans see good news in the numbers

By Bryan Bissell, PolitickerWA.com Reporter

Two weeks ago in Denver, Washington state Speaker of the House Frank Chopp (D-Seattle) remained hopeful of the Democrats' long term strategy for maintaining a large House majority, but after August's "top two" primary, House Republicans are as hopeful as ever.

Kevin Carns, the Director of the House Republican Organizational Committee, told PolitickerWA.com that, after analyzing an extensive series of numbers, House Republicans should be able to reduce the Democratic majority by at least two seats in 2008.

"From a macro perspective we are in very, very good shape," Carns said. "We are in a strong position to pick up a couple seats minimum."

The HROC director cited figures from the primary that showed positive signs for a number of Republicans statewide. Every Republican incumbent and every combined Republican candidate running for retiring Republican open seats received at least 50 percent of the primary vote, and two Republican challengers, Mike Hope (R-Everett) in the 44th and Toby Nixon (R-Kirkland) in the 45th, hit the 49 percent mark against incumbents Liz Loomis (D-Snohomish) and Roger Goodman (D-Kirkland), respectively.

Meanwhile two Democratic incumbents, Rep. Don Barlow (D-Spokane) in the 6th and Geoff Simpson (D-Covington) in the 47th, were both under 50 percent in the primary. Barlow was on the other side of a competitive Republican race between Spokane's Kevin Parker and Mel Lindauer, and Simpson had Democratic opposition following a domestic dispute that resulted in an arrest, though all charges were dropped.

"I think we've got very good opportunities in the 6th Legislative District with Kevin Parker, and in the 26th with Jan Angel (R-Port Orchard) is a very, very strong opportunity for a pickup," he said of the former Kitsap County Commissioner. "She did very well in Kitsap County which is traditionally where we lose."

Carns was also very high on Mercer Island City Councilman Steve Litzow in the 41st and said that he had done better than any Republican in that district in the past fifty years. He also didn't rule out a surprise in the 16th Legislative District where Terry Neally is challenging ten term Rep. Bill Grant (D-Walla Walla) in an otherwise Republican-leaning district.

To help win these seats back, the House Republicans have developed a field accountability program for their legislative candidates. First implemented in 2006 but not fully on track until this year, it tracks doorbelling numbers, phone calls and letters to the editor weekly.

"We're pretty pleased with the results and I think it really speaks highly of how hard our guys are working on the ground," Carns added.

Kevin Parker has reportedly knocked on 16,000 doors, and called Steve Litzow has bit 12,000 doors himself. Carns called Litzow a "campaign animal" who quite fittingly has been bitten by dogs twice already on the campaign trail, and still earned their owner's vote.

It is not just the challengers who are working hard, either.

"[Rep.] Skip Priest (R-Federal Way) is a doorbelling machine as an incumbent," Carns said of the Federal Way Republican. "Skip is a great example in our caucus that you can win in a district that doesn't necessarily lean your party's way. Skip works hard and he stands up for his community, but he doorbells like a madman."

It is exactly that madman-like ferocity the Republicans are counting on this fall, in part because of the significant money disadvantage they have compared to House Democrats.

"We're going to get outspent, clearly," Carns acknowledged. "But if you have good ideas and good people you can overcome that."

Bryan Bissell is a PolitickerWA.com Reporter and can be reached via email at noreply@politicker.com.

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House Republicans see good news in the numbers

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