When WA10 was first rolled out to the public two and a half years ago, it was supposedly a competitive district. Dino Ross had done fairly well (47 to 53 percent against an incumbent Dem) in the precincts that would make up the new congressional district that now stretches from Fort Lewis through Thurston County to Shelton.
But, since then, one election has indicated that Democrats may well consider this a safe district. Denny Heck beat up on challenger Dick Muri with 58 percent of the vote in the first election for the new CD in 2012. He also out-raised both Republican challengers with over $2 million to their combined $500,000.
Which leads me to my next point. So far this cycle (FEC info here), Heck has out-raised Joyce McDonald $500k to just $33k. She's not even in the money race right now. It seems that even contributors have written off either McDonald or the WA 10 as a GOP district all-together.
Which is odd, because during the last mid-term race, a Republican did fairly well in the WA-10. Now, in a year with a significant GOP tide, the party seems to have not even entered the race.
A recently leaked state GOP memo on the state of the current races offers even fewer clues. While the memo makes strong arguments to try to attract women voters, it singles out a female Democratic congressional candidate as the party's single focus for the cycle. Obviously leaving out a female Republican candidate facing a male Democrat.
WA 10 seems like it could be a competitive Republican district, but I can't tell why they don't make more of an effort here. Not that I really want them to, I like Denny Heck.
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