Jay Inslee, Rob McKenna make final push in bid for governor

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After a campaign that’s gone on for seemingly more than a year and cost more than $25 million, there’s little Jay Inslee and Rob McKenna can do now but wait for the votes to be tallied.

The bitter rivals traded one last round of barbs before the Tuesday deadline, and each made one last round of impassioned pitches in their bid to replace Democrat Christine Gregoire in Olympia.

Both headed into the home stretch continuing to promise they wouldn’t raise taxes, despite Governor Gregoire’s recent assertions either will have no choice given the state’s budget situation.

Inslee insists the state can get out of its hole and generate new money through job growth, not taxes.

“Clearly you need to look at the real problem and the problem is we’ve got to get people back to work to generate the revenues that we need. And that’s why I have a very, very substantive and very detailed 75 point plan to get people back to work in the state and build the innovative new industries that we know can grow,” Inslee told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson Show, reiterating his promise to not raise taxes.

Inslee argues his vision for job creation in aviation, biotechnology, clean technology and other industries sets him apart from McKenna.

But McKenna insists the governor and Inslee are both wrong.

“The governor never seems to mention that her own budget office is projecting $11 billion of additional tax revenue in the next eight years. That’s a 36 percent increase in tax revenue,” McKenna told Dori. “My proposal is to take two our of three new dollars that comes in, in growth and put it into the schools and in our colleges and universities.”

The two candidates have taken widely divergent paths in the final days of the race. Inslee focused his campaigning on the west side of the state, with last-minute messaging focused on his jobs plan and his alliance with Democrats on issues like abortion and the president’s health care plan.

“I’m on the side with President Barack Obama moving forward on health care both because it will help insure 250,000 people in our state and it will save taxpayer dollars immediately off the top of $120 million,” he said.

McKenna, meantime, spent much of the waning days of the campaign on a 29-city “RV tour” that heavily emphasized Eastern and Central Washington, The Seattle Times reported.

He’s continued to heavily emphasize the support he says he’s amassed across party lines and led to his endorsement by over a dozen newspapers across the state. Support he says is why he was twice elected Attorney General, “by building a coalition of Republicans, independents and Democrats who care about supporting job creation, who care about reforming and adequately funding our schools and our colleges and care about reforming state government itself.”

While polls continue showing the candidates in a virtual dead heat, some speculate several ballot issues such as gay marriage and marijuana legalization will tip the scales in Inslee’s favor by drawing more Democratic leaning voters. But McKenna says polls show the measures are not dramatically increasing turnout. Plus, he points to conservatives like former Governor Dan Evans, a key McKenna supporter, also backing R-74.

“I don’t think anything is open and shut. I don’t take anyone’s support for granted,” Inslee said. “People have to decide what is important to them.”

Inslee won’t make any predictions on the outcome. McKenna insists he’ll be the winner, although the race is likely to be unresolved for at least a few days until enough of the mail-in ballots are tallied.

“Looking at the research that’s been done, it’s trending very well my way and we have an unparalleled effort to get our voters out,” McKenna said.

McKenna said his aggressive ‘get out the vote’ effort will result in much higher Republican and independent support on both sides of the mountains, even in Seattle where he was the first GOP candidate with an office in the heavily-Democratic leaning city. “We’re going to win enough of the vote there to win statewide.”

But the Inslee effort is aided by a huge Democratic “coordinated campaign” with 25 offices across the state working to drive turnout for President Obama and other Democratic candidates.

Both candidates have reason for optimism based on the most recent polling. The KCTS 9/University of Washington Poll found Inslee with 51 percent of the vote among people who’d already voted, compared with 48 percent for McKenna.

But the poll showed McKenna up by 20 points among independents, with McKenna predicting he’ll pick up a huge surge from that block.

If history is any indication, it clearly favors Inslee. Washington state hasn’t elected a Republican for governor since 1984.