Gov. Inslee alienated rural Washington voters

Next governor must heal the deepening urban/rural divide

No doubt many cheers went up in the Lower Columbia Region when Gov. Jay Inslee announced that he would not seek an unprecedented fourth term next year.

The governor, first elected in  2012 and re-elected in 2016 and 2020, become increasingly unpopular in these parts as his tenure progressed.

He got just 37% of the Cowlitz vote in 2020, down 11 points from his percentage in 2012. 

Inslee’s share of the vote in Pacific County during that time declined 5 points — from 51.7% to 46.5%  — and fell 6 points in Wahkiakum County, where he got only 37% of the vote in 2020.

These declines are even more remarkable when you consider that the GOP nominee in 2020 — Loren Culp — was a grossly unqualified country bumpkin drunk on MAGA Kool-Aide.

Inslee’s poor performance in rural Washington could be a warning for Democrats — especially if Republicans stop putting forth weak candidates.

Inslee has proven unpopular in rural Washington for some of the very things that make him successful in the urban Puget Sound area and will be part of his considerable legacy:  He has championed gun control, climate-change legislation and ending the death penalty. His COVID-related social and business restrictions helped reduce death and illness in Washington compared to most other states, as unpopular as they were to many Republicans and civil libertarians. 

His unpopularity in rural Washington is, of course, part of the  urban/rural schism that divides America. But in Inslee’s case, it goes deeper than that. The governor gave the impression that he just did not care about rural Washingtonians.

His decision to kill the proposed Port of Kalama methanol plant, which would have created 200 jobs and boosted tax revenues, still sticks in the region’s craw.  He  withdrew his earlier support of the project because — only on the surface — it looked bad for him during his brief run for president on a climate change agenda. (Even the state’s own study showed the plant would cause a global reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.)

The governor made a big show of visiting Pacific County to investigate the ghost shrimp that threaten Willapa Bay’s oyster beds. But then he vetoed legislation meant to accelerate the permitting of pesticides to control them.

Last year, the governor vetoed bipartisan legislation to make tax incentives available to spur development in rural Washington. Small counties — especially those with declining natural-resource based economies — need such tools to prosper again. Inslee called the incentives too broad — but in an act of duplicity he retained them for an un-named clean-energy project he was trying to recruit to the state.

“The veto reinforces the feeling, shared by many Washingtonians outside the Seattle area, that their concerns are often last on the list. That may be an overstatement, but what Inslee made clear in his selective rejection is that his interests come first,” the Seattle Times chimed in at the time.

I don’t think that Inslee has been a bad governor overall, but he has not been a good governor for rural Washington.

Politically, perhaps this doesn’t matter. A recent study that the Brookings Institution did for Atlantic  based on the 2020 presidential  election recently found that Democrats are consolidating their hold on the most economically productive places in the nation.

Joe Biden won 43 of the 50 largest metro areas, including the first 24 most economically productive areas. This means that Democrats are dominating where the population is diverse, more educated and more amendable to the cultural changes shaping the nation. Republicans, on the other hand, have gained strength in largely white, blue collar communities still dependent on farming, manufacturing and other traditional industries — communities like those on the Lower Columbia River.

Prosperity brings political power, and that means Washington Democrats probably can continue to win statewide office by appealing to just a handful of prosperous counties, most of them in the Puget Sound area.

But it’s bad for the state. It contributes to strife and the rise of extremist candidates like state Rep. Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen,  and Trump-endorsed GOP congressional candidate Joe Kent.

The next governor should make a point of reaching out to rural areas, visit often, listen to their concerns and develop economic policies geared toward boosting their prosperity.  Communities like Longview,  Kelso and Long Beach are highly unlikely to become major players in the communications and computer economies, but there are plenty of other ways they can prosper.

Inslee has already done a lot of the heavy lifting on progressive topics — such as  gun control and climate change — that are unpopular here. So whoever succeeds him may find it easier to approach rural voters and win their confidence.

For the sake of the state, the next governor must.