Senator Mark Mullet Wins Unprecedented Race

Senator Mark Mullet, a moderate Democrat from the 5th Legislative District, had won a very close reelection, but not against a Republican challenger. He was being targeted by his own party and faced a progressive Democrat named Ingrid Anderson

This past election cycle we saw a very unusual situation where an incumbent Senator faced a challenger from their own party. This is not too out of the ordinary, we often see in strong liberal or conservative districts members from the same party advancing to the top two here in Washington State. However, there were a few distinctions in this particular race which made it very unique and important for the business and housing community in Washington.

What was very unusual about this race was the amount of money spent by organizations to try and unseat a sitting member of a party which these organizations typically support. While Anderson only raised about $256k to Mullets’ $500k, she received over $1.3 million in 3rd party expenditures (attack ads) against Mullet. These groups were very liberal leaning organizations that funded these attack ads on Senator Mullet.

The other major surprise in this race was the public endorsement of Mullet’s opponent by Governor Jay Inslee. Historically, a sitting Governor has not endorsed the opponent of an incumbent State Senator of the same political party. This is a huge indicator of ideological differences within the same party, and sets a concerning precedence to shift the political landscape even further to the left.

The 5th Legislative District is a swing district that leans Democrat. This race saw many republicans supporting the incumbent Democrat Mullet due to his business owner perspective and willingness to listen to all his constituents. After a recount and 6 weeks after election day, Senator Mullet won reelection by 58 votes out of a total of 97,471 votes. 58 votes.

Senator Mullet has been a business and landlord ally in a Democratic caucus that is shifting to the left. His strong voice is crucial since so many of likeminded Democrats, like Senator Takko, are being unelected and now targeted by more progressive members of their party. If Senator Mullet would have lost this race, this would have had dire consequences not only with losing another business friendly Democrat, but there would be no reasonable voice for a multitude other issues, especially housing and landlord/tenant.

We are very pleased to have impacted this race and to have supported Senator Mullet early in this election. The Senator has repeatedly expressed his gratitude and thanked us for our early support.