A political action committee funded by corporations and wealthy individuals that would like Washington’s next governor to be friendly to their interests have launched a big ad buy in support of Democratic State Senator Mark Mullet’s flagging campaign, hoping it’ll give his candidacy a boost as the August Top Two election draws nearer.
The first phase of the ad buy, which will reportedly be multifaceted, consists of a spot now airing on television stations in the Seattle media market. Our tracking tools picked it up on at least three different channels today (KOMO, KING, and KIRO). Although the ad looks at first glance like it was created by Mullet’s campaign, with Mullet’s visage and large lettering reading “Mark Mullet — Democrat for Governor” at the end, the legally required disclosure makes it clear that it is actually a production of the “Coalition for Pragmatic Leadership PAC,” primarily funded by Weidner Property Management, George Rowley, John Goodman, George Petrie, and Marathon Petroleum Corporation.
Watch it below:
Transcript of the voiceover:
Senator Mark Mullet is running for governor to voice our Washington values:
- A woman’s right to choose
- LGBTQ rights
- And putting a stop to gun violence
- He’s running to fix the real problems we have with skyrocketing costs, crime, and homelessness
- As a senator, Senator Mullet led historic state investments to make housing more affordable
- Senator Mullet negotiated a bipartisan compromise to give police the tools they need to keep us safe — that’s why he’s endorsed by law enforcement
Democrat Mark Mullet for Governor!
Our friend Paul Queary and his colleagues at The Washington Observer previously reported that the Coalition for Pragmatic Leadership was preparing to get involved in the gubernatorial race on Mullet’s behalf. From their April 8th dispatch:
A planned seven-figure independent campaign aimed at boosting the gubernatorial profile of state Sen. Mark Mullet should be popping up in your inbox, mailbox, and on various screens in the next few weeks.
As we’ve noted before, polls from the right, left, and center show the business-friendly Issaquah Democrat stuck in single digits, far behind Democratic Attorney General Bob Ferguson and former Republican Congressman Dave Reichert.
So we were intrigued to learn of a March 28 meeting chock-full of top-tier Olympia lobbyists in which the Coalition for Pragmatic Leadership — a PAC that was quietly established last year to support Mullet — laid out a plan to raise his profile this spring. As we noted when he entered the race, Mullet’s path to victory involves some combination of two things: chaos and discord on the Republican side of the race, and a big independent campaign on his behalf. So far, the Republicans haven’t cooperated on the chaos front.
A few days ago, there was an important development on the “chaos front”: the Washington State Republican Party endorsed ultra MAGA Reichert rival Semi Bird, spurning Reichert, who withdrew his name from consideration and backed out of appearing at the convention after concluding that the process was rigged and unfair. (State Party Chair Jim Walsh naturally disputes that and has loudly protested the labeling of the convention as “chaotic.”) Our assessment is that the endorsement is unlikely to do much for Bird unless it becomes a springboard to an endorsement from insurrectionist Donald Trump himself.
Mullet’s camp, I imagine, sees the Bird endorsement as evidence that there’s still a path for Mullet to get to the general election. But that path is mighty steep.
Our polling suggests Mullet has experienced only negative momentum in his campaign thus far. Shortly after he declared, in June of 2023, we found him at 7% in a field that also consisted of Bird, Ferguson, and Raul Garcia, who is now running for U.S. Senate out of deference to Reichert. Then, in November, we found that he had slid to 5%. And more recently, in February, we found him at just 4%, with Bird at 9%, Reichert at 27%, and Ferguson at 35%.
The Washington Observer’s sources advised that the pro-Mullet independent expenditure would be a seven-figure effort, noting in their April 8th piece: “The Coalition for Pragmatic Leadership expects to raise more than $1M for this effort and already has a key $250K check in hand from a company you’ve likely never heard of: Weidner Apartment Homes.”
As mentioned above, Weidner is listed in the ad as the PAC’s top funder.
“The size of the campaign planned for Mullet can be viewed as a short-term feasibility study to answer this question: Can the state senator’s profile be raised enough in the next couple of months to justify a much larger investment to get him through the August [Top Two election]? The plan is to run the campaign this spring and then test public opinion to see if the needle has moved,” The Observer explained. “If so, look for some huge checks. The list of deep-pocketed business interests who would prefer Mullet to Ferguson but don’t want to set fire to stacks of Ben Franklins for a lost cause is long.”
The PAC’s C1-PC lists just two officers: Tyler Mason of Enterprise Washington and Julia Gorton of the Washington Restaurant Association. Gorton serves as the PAC’s treasurer. It has yet to file any reports with the Public Disclosure Commission for the current year, but it will have to soon, given that it has launched this independent expenditure campaign.
If The Washington Observer’s sources are right, this independent expenditure likely has enough funding on hand to keep its television spot on air for at least several weeks. The aforementioned gubernatorial candidates remain primarily in fundraising mode and are trying to stockpile funds for their summer voter outreach efforts.
Our next statewide survey fields in mid-May and we’ll be asking who voters support for governor, so we’ll be able to gauge the effectiveness of this ad buy and whether it’s doing anything for Mullet fairly soon.
