Live from Music Row Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed renowned Republican political consultant Ward Baker of Baker Group Strategies in the studio to discuss the hotly contested US Senate race in Washington State between incumbent Patty Murray and hardworking Tiffany Smiley for governor.
(Darth Vader theme plays)
Leahy: Ward Baker! Great political consultant. Republicans love him, Democrats fear him. Right? Not all Republicans love you.
Baker: No.
Leahy: Actually, if you work for a Republican in the primary, they love you. And then in the general, all Republicans love you. But usually, you win. So that’s why you’re feared. You’re involved in a number of campaigns on the Senate side.
One fascinating campaign to me is in Washington State. And as you know, our producer Patrick is a refugee from Washington State. He fled a year ago from the Seattle area and moved here to Nashville.
Baker: I need him to go back and vote.
Leahy: (Laughs) So the Senate race, Patty Murray was elected, I guess, back in 1992. She is a hardcore left-winger. Probably has the worst hairdo in the United States Senate, I would say, but also a far-lefty. She’s in trouble. How much did Biden win Washington State by?
Baker: Nineteen points.
Leahy: I knew you would have it off the top of your head. But the latest polls show that the Republican nominee, Tiffany Smiley, is within striking distance. Now, Tiffany has a fascinating story. Tell our listeners a little bit about her background.
Baker: It’s great. She’s tougher than any gunnery sergeant I’ve ever worked for.
Leahy: By the way, you served in the U.S. Marines?
Baker: Yes, sir.
Leahy:Â Four years in the range.
Baker: Four years, six months, 11 days.
Leahy: And how many hours?
Baker: I got out at three o’clock. (Leahy laughs) It is not for everybody.
Leahy: But by the way, this is typical Ward Baker, because we’ll have a conversation and he’ll say, you know, three years and two months ago, you said the following. And I said, well, I believe you. How do you know that? Well, I track everything you say.
Baker: I do. The Marines are not for everyone, but for me, it was the best thing that ever happened. Patty Murray has been in the Senate so long, she’s starting to grow moss. And we are very fortunate that Tiffany Smiley ran. She’s probably one of the best candidates, Michael, I’ve ever worked with, if not the best. She’s a hard worker. She is doing multiple town halls a day.
Leahy: Her personal story is fascinating. She’s a nurse.
Baker: Her husband lost his eyesight in an IED.
Leahy: Serving in our military.
Baker: Army captain.
Leahy: IED explodes.
Baker: He’s blinded. But let me take a step back. They’ve been dating since junior high. It’s an all-American story. And he loses eyesight. And he was the first infantry officer ever to serve blind, and he fought for that. He gets out, and his veterans’ benefits weren’t coming in.
Tiffany took on the VA and won, and really didn’t get any help from Senator Murray and decided to run because there was really no voice in Washington State, as you know. People are leaving. And what’s going on in Seattle is very undocumented. And people in states like this don’t understand. The homeless population is huge.
Leahy: And growing.
Baker: The homeless population in Portland and San Francisco, sort of in that West Coast corridor there, is just growing and growing, and Tiffany has a voice for people that feel voiceless. And it’s all about King County. What the number we have there. But here’s the number you need to look at.
     Leahy: King County is Seattle.
Baker: We talked about the economy with Biden and looked at the underneath numbers, not just the ballot number. In the polling that we have seen, Patty Murray is constantly stuck at 46 and she can’t break 46.
I believe incumbents mainly get what they poll. What the numbers show is that’s what they’re mainly maxed out at. We’ve never seen her at 49, and obviously never seen her at 50. And so it’s going to be a late night.
We won’t know because it’s a vote-by-mail state and we won’t know the vote probably until Friday or Saturday who’s going to win that race. Tiffany Smiley is the best candidate, I believe, her and Kari Lake running this year, and we are very fortunate.
She is making millions of dollars being pulled out of other states, and going into Washington state to try to stop her surge. She’s surging at the right time. An amazing team, an amazing candidate with an amazing story.
Leahy: The interesting thing about Patty Murray is she’s just not a very likable candidate.
Baker: She doesn’t live there anymore, she lives in D.C. And she goes back and obviously, the news didn’t want to report what was going on with Smiley. And everywhere she goes there are 800, 900 people at these rallies and they are so excited.
They haven’t had this since Dino Rossi, if you remember, in 2010, who ran for governor, which was a huge issue and at one time they thought he was going to be governor, even had the state troopers that were with them.
And then the race I believe was basically stolen from him by 200 votes. And so we have a great opportunity. And right now I believe it’s a total toss-up.
Leahy: The Trafalgar Group has Murray plus-one in the most recent poll. This was a poll conducted October 25-28th, 1,200 likely voters, margin of error 2.9 percent, shows Murray with 49 percent, Smiley with 48 percent. That is within the margin of error. That is shocking to me.
Baker: In the last three or four weeks we tried to keep our head down, we didn’t want it to be known too much. and obviously polls are coming out and so the cat’s out of the bag.
It’s huge momentum, it’s a huge feeling and everyone’s very excited. Get your popcorn ready, it’s going to be a late night in Washington state.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Patty Murray” by Patty Murray. Photo “Tiffany Smiley” by Tiffany Smiley. Background Photo “U.S. Capitol” by Andrew Van Huss. CC BY-SA 4.0.
