Community Government

Race to unseat Caldier in 26th District’s Position 2 draws a crowd

Four challengers seek to deny Michelle Caldier a sixth term in the Washington state House of Representatives.

The Gig Harbor Republican edged Larry Seaquist by 601 votes in 2014 to capture the 26th Legislative District’s Position 2 seat. She hasn’t been threatened since, prevailing by double digits every two years.

Looking to end that streak are Republican Rachel Harter, Democrats Tiffiny Mitchell and Lori McPherson, and independent Josh Smith. (Click here for each candidates’ stands on some of the top issues in the race.)

Voters must return primary election ballots by 8 p.m. on Aug. 6. The top two finishers, regardless of party, advance to the general election on Nov. 5.

The 26th District comprises the Gig Harbor area, Key Peninsula, most of South Kitsap and part of Bremerton. , Representatives earn $61,997 per year effective July 1, 2024.

Caldier says investigations are history

Besides the aspiring quartet, Caldier, 48, must overcome a December report that found she bullied and berated employees and a follow-up investigation that she retaliated against three witnesses by revealing their names to reporters.

Her access to caucus staff was curtailed. She is required to undergo training on proper workplace conduct before it is fully restored.

Caldier claimed the dispute resulted from disagreements with caucus leadership and insufficient accommodation for her vision loss. She left the caucus in November 2022, forfeiting her committee assignments, but returned in spring 2023 after minority leader J.T. Wilcox stepped down from the role. Her disability has been addressed, she’s back with her caucus and committees, and ready for another run.

“All of that is going to be behind me,” she said.

Caldier said in May that the community knows who she is, and that’s not the person depicted in the reports.

“What they’ve written is not my character at all and I have to trust the public will see through all that,” she said. “If they don’t, they don’t. That’s politics.”

Caldier holds big funding lead

The retired nursing home dentist leads the fundraising race. She has raised $82,830, nearly doubling the next candidate, according to the Public Disclosure Commission.

Donors are split evenly among individuals, political action committees and businesses. She received $5,000 from the House Republican Organizational Committee and strong support from the medical/dental community.

Caldier possesses the deepest local roots of the bunch, having graduated from Central Kitsap High School and Olympic College before earning bachelor’s and Doctor of Dental Surgery degrees from the University of Washington, where she also taught.

She serves on the Regulated Substance and Gaming; Health Care and Wellness; and Innovation, Community and Economic Development and Veterans committees. She worked to end the statewide eviction moratorium, bring toll relief, procure funding for new ferries, resume police pursuits and overcome health challenges, she said.

Groups endorsing Caldier include the Association of Washington Business, Washington Retail Association, Washington Realtors, Building Industry Association of Washington and Mainstream Republicans of Washington, she said.

Smith touts independent route

Smith was Caldier’s lone opponent until late on the final filing day, May 10. The former National Weather Service meteorologist and current data consultant for Washington State Elections has always identified as an independent and believes the parties are beyond reforming. Smith says that’s the route to beat Caldier.

“Against any partisan contender, Michelle has handily defeated them in the general election by 10% or more of the votes,” he said. “I believe the only way to run against an incumbent in our district is to run as an independent.”

Smith, 34, graduated from the University of Washington with degrees in Atmospheric Science and Applied and Computational Math Sciences. He left the weather service after Donald Trump won the presidency and showed how leaders can corrupt government to serve personal and political ends, he said.

“I saw issues with the federal government,” he said. “I traveled around the world for a few years, visited over 100 countries to look at how other countries are dealing with different issues and what we can do better here in the United States.”

Smith wound up in Estonia, where he earned a master’s degree in Politics and Governance in the Digital Age from the University of Tartu.

Wants to find party consensus

The Gig Harbor resident wants to form a coalition across party lines to advocate for working- and middle-class families and local businesses, including by addressing affordability, opposing regressive taxes such as tolls on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and enacting campaign finance reform to remove the influence of money from elections.

Smith has raised $10,606, all but $756 (Laborers Union) from individuals or himself, according to the PDC. The only four-digit donation was $1,200, twice, from Krist Novoselic, the former Nirvana bassist who chairs the new, centrist Cascade Party. His Bona Fide Band staged a Bremerton concert to bring awareness to Smith’s campaign. The two came together because of their mutual support of ranked-choice voting, which incentivizes politicians to find middle ground.

Among Smith’s endorsements are the Inlandboatmen’s Union, Bremerton Metal Trades Council, Gig Harbor City Council members Roger Henderson and Jeni Woock, and Bremerton City Councilman Jeff Coughlin.

McPherson filled Democrat void

McPherson, 55, said one of her co-hosts on Kitsap County’s Outlaw Radio Network urged her to run for office.

“I’m like a lot of people who don’t like certain things about the government,” she said. “Instead of complaining, a friend challenged me and said why don’t you get involved? I said, yeah, I might as well try it.”

The Bremerton woman saw no Democrat had filed to run against Caldier. Local party organizers didn’t foresee anyone, though they were trying to recruit Mitchell, McPherson said.

McPherson said she identifies more as an independent because she doesn’t like the extremes the major parties have reached.

“I went with the Democratic Party because I do support abortion, not so much as birth control but more as a medical procedure,” said McPherson, who said during an interview with Outlaw Radio that she agrees with the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that returns abortion authority to the states. “I’m just more of a moderate. I want to see less divisiveness between all people concerned and more working together and unifying. You don’t always have to agree with everything, but if we keep dividing, we’re killing our country.”

McPherson, who earned a Business Administration-Accounting degree from Central Washington University, is a payroll tax strategist for the mental health community.

McPherson campaign delayed

She said she’ll put constituents before corporations, lobbyists and other special interests. McPherson wrote in her voter pamphlet statement that she was compelled to run because decisions by Caldier showed contempt for single parents like her, and because of deceit and laziness toward low-income and senior communities.

She volunteers at a homeless shelter for struggling teens, as a youth minister, and as an educator for special-needs and at-risk students, she said.

McPherson is registered with the PDC, but no contributions have been recorded. She said she plans to finance the effort herself. Nor does she have a website or road signs because a personal emergency delayed her campaign, she said.

Mitchell files at deadline

Mitchell jumped into the race at the last hour after receiving disparate views about whether serving in the Legislature would conflict with her position as a benefits specialist with Washington Employment Security Department’s Paid Family and Medical Leave division. She was told originally it would, and didn’t pursue the post.

Then she saw that Smith, a fellow state employee, was running, and sought a second opinion. She determined that she can continue in her job and take unpaid leave during the legislative sessions.

The timing wasn’t ideal. She’d normally like to start campaigning in January, she said. But she succeeded under similar circumstances before. She was also relatively unknown after moving to Astoria, Ore., in 2015.

“The reason I got involved in politics revolved around the election of Donald Trump,” she said. “I was personally horrified because he had this really long record of exploiting women and saying and doing horrible things. I couldn’t believe we as a country elected him.”

A candidate dropped out of a 2017 race for state representative. Mitchell disliked the platforms of the two others, so decided to run herself. She won.

“We were able to get my name out there, get me recognized and let people know what I felt was important for the district,” she said. “It’s one of those stories that shows that through enough hard work and getting out there, things can happen. It was not a perfect situation, but it’s important to know I actually have done this whole thing once before.”

In late 2019, TimberUnity, a logging industry activist group, attempted to recall Mitchell for voting for bills to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and tax businesses to pay for schools. The group failed to acquire enough signatures.

Moved north after Oregon term

Mitchell’s husband accepted a position with Peninsula Light in 2020. She finished her Oregon term and followed him to Port Orchard early the next year.

Mitchell, 40, received a bachelor’s degree in Film Study from the University of Utah followed by an MBA from Western Governors University. She champions affordable housing and health care, increasing school funding, protecting the environment and a woman’s right to choose.

“Reproductive rights have become an even bigger issue in just the last two years,” she said. “It was something people just took for granted living in a state that typically protected those things. It’s incredibly important to do everything we can to not make those assumptions. All it takes is the political whims in the state to change.”

Mitchell has raised $42,256, including $14,849 from individuals, $12,500 from the 26th Legislative District Democrats and $7,553 from political action committees, according to the PDC.

Mitchell touts more than 20 endorsements, including Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates, U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer, the Washington State Labor Council (AFL-CIO), her union AFSCME Council 28 (the Washington Federation of State Employees), SEIU 925 and 1199 NW, IBEW 483 and the Environmental Coalition of Pierce County, she said.

Harter backed by Jesse Young

Harter, like Smith and McPherson, is making her political debut. Former representative Jesse Young, running this year for his old Position 1 seat in the House, encouraged her run against fellow Republican Caldier. (Caldier is backing Jim Henderson against Young).

The Montana native earned an engineering degree from Montana State University. She moved to Gig Harbor in 2011, according to her website. She is a pharmaceutical area sales manager, according to a PDC financial affairs disclosure.

She is a passionate advocate for parental rights, public safety and fiscal responsibility, according to the voter’s pamphlet.

“Now, these opportunities to live the American dream are being attacked and lost by elected leaders who lack the work ethic and courage to protect our families from woke politics,” she states in the pamphlet.

She says she’ll protect parental rights and public safety, and fight inflation and taxes.

Harter, 44, has raised $20,992, including $8,400 from Tom Jonez, his wife and several of his companies. Jonez is co-president of Gig Harbor-based religious right group One Washington, of which Young is a board advisor, according to its website. Harter says she is an active member of the organization.

Her endorsers include the Pierce County Republican Party, Washington Farm Bureau and Stand For Health Freedom, she said.

Harter did not respond to Gig Harbor Now’s request for an interview.