The folks at New Direction, the PAC that works to protect and build the Democratic majorities in the Legislature, dropped us an interesting polling memo that looks at the Senate race in the 26th Legislative District.

 

Sen. Deb Krishnadasan, D-Gig Harbor, who was appointed after Emily Randall was elected to Congress, must run for the remaining year of Randall’s term. She’s already got a challenge from one of her House seatmates, Rep. Michelle Caldier, R-Gig Harbor.

 

As with any partisan poll, a grain of salt is in order.

 

The survey from Public Policy Polling found Krishnadasan with a slight 45-43 lead over Caldier among likely voters, which is well within the margin of error. But the pollsters also tested someone who’s not yet in the race: former Rep. Jesse Young, R-Gig Harbor, an arch-conservative who lost a Senate race to Randall in 2022 and a House race to Democrat Addison Richards last year.

 

PPP found Young plays better with the GOP’s MAGA base than the moderate Caldier, and led her by five percentage points for second in a three-way race. The final matchup for November will be decided in the August primary and is likely to have extremely low turnouts, which favors candidates that appeal to partisan supervoters.

 

Young beat a moderate in last year’s primary race, which got kinda ugly, before losing to Richards. New Direction spent a boatload casting him as the villain in the fall campaign and would cheerfully bust out that playbook again in a year when results elsewhere indicate some MAGA fatigue.3 Notably absent from the memo is a head-to-head Krishnadasan-Young number.

 

PQ

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Read the story here: A polling tidbit in the 26th District Senate race