WA 6th District campaign to replace Derek Kilmer takes a competitive turn

Congressman Derek Kilmer’s retirement announcement in November caught a lot of people off guard — he’s only 50, had easily won reelection five times and had already raised more than $1.4 million for a campaign.

One person not surprised, however, was Hilary Franz, Washington’s two-term public lands commissioner who was then running for governor.

Kilmer had called Franz to give her a heads up that he would not seek reelection to the 6th District, and to recruit her.

“I am looking for a leader to replace me that knows the issues of this district,” Franz said Kilmer told her.

The day after Kilmer’s announcement, Franz dropped her gubernatorial run and launched a congressional campaign to succeed Kilmer. He immediately endorsed her.

But what could have turned into a coronation now has the looks of a competitive race, with three veteran state officials vying for the seat representing the Olympic and Kitsap peninsulas in the U.S. House.

Franz, a Democrat, has opened up an early fundraising lead. But state Sen. Emily Randall, also a Democrat, has collected more high-profile endorsements from the state’s congressional delegation, indicating a split among the Democratic establishment. Republican state Sen. Drew MacEwen lags in fundraising but says he’s confident he can flip the seat, just as he previously won open state House and state Senate seats that had been held by Democrats.

The seat has been in Democratic hands for the last 60 years.

Other candidates could still emerge before the May 10 filing deadline. The top two candidates in the August primary, regardless of party, advance to November’s general election.

Franz touts the endorsements of Kilmer and his predecessor, former U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks.

But Randall won the endorsement of the state’s senior-most Democrat, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, as well as U.S. Reps. Marilyn Strickland and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez.

Both Democratic candidates, when asked the most important issue facing the district, named reproductive rights first.

“I never thought that my children, by the time they were launched and adults, that their friends would have less rights than I had when I went off to college and graduated from college,” Franz said

“We really need national protections and those are things, that fight motivates my neighbors and motivates folks to get involved in politics,” Randall said.

MacEwen has voted against abortion protections in the state Legislature, but said he thinks it’s a state issue and that Washington voters have made their pro-abortion rights preferences clear.

He said he would vote against a national abortion ban of anything under 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Franz, 54, a lawyer and former executive director of a statewide environmental group, served one term on the Bainbridge Island City Council before she was elected to lead the state’s Department of Natural Resources in 2016. She won a second term in 2020.

In office, she’s focused on boosting the state’s resources and strategies for fighting wildfires, and has increased leases of state land for agriculture and for renewable energy projects.

She launched a gubernatorial campaign last year (after considering a run in 2020), shortly after Gov. Jay Inslee announced he wouldn’t seek a fourth term, but she struggled to keep pace in that race with Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who had big leads in fundraising and prominent endorsements.

Franz reported more than $415,000 in fundraising in the first three months of this year and more than $580,000 in cash on hand.

Randall, 39, worked for various nonprofits, including Planned Parenthood, before running for state Senate in 2018, flipping a Republican-held seat by just 102 votes. She won reelection in 2022 in the most expensive state legislative race in the state.

In the Legislature, she’s touted her work on the state’s Paid Family and Medical Leave program as well as her support for investments in school-based health centers.

Randall reported more than $305,000 in fundraising in the first quarter of this year, and about $367,000 in campaign cash on hand.

MacEwen, 50, served in the Navy and was stationed at Naval Base Kitsap before settling in Mason County, where he founded a financial advising firm. He won a state House seat in 2012, serving until he won an open state Senate seat in 2022.

He named the economy, broadly, as the most important issue facing the district.

“We’ve had years of inflation now, significant inflation, that has wiped out family savings,” MacEwen said.

He reported more than $45,000 in the first quarter and has about $37,000 in cash on hand.

The two Democrats acknowledge that they agree on most of the policy issues they would face in Congress, but both cited their specific experience in making their case.

“I have significant experience of working on the issues around responding to climate and our climate crisis,” Franz said.

“I’ve got a legislative track record, not only as a member of a legislative body but as a member of leadership and a committee chair,” Randall said.

MacEwen argues, even though the district has not elected a Republican since Thor Tollefson in 1962, that he can win the seat.

The district, he said, is changing, citing his own history of flipping both his state House and his state Senate seat (although the Democratic state senator who preceded him caucused with Republicans).

It has been at least two decades, he said, since a Republican ran for the seat, having already held elected office.

“There is a path to win this for a Republican, and I plan to do so,” MacEwen said.