Washington Attorney General (AG) Bob Ferguson addressed recent developments in the state’s governor’s race Monday morning, days after two people named Robert Ferguson joined the ballot.
On Friday, two additional Democratic candidates filed to run for Washington governor under the name Bob Ferguson. Right wing activist Glen Morgan posted on Facebook around 5 p.m. Friday saying he was the “volunteer campaign manager for two of the Bob Fergusons running for governor. They are both superior in every way to the AG running for the same office, and I believe they can provide better choices for the Democrats in our state for that office.”
By Monday evening, both Bob Fergusons told KOMO News they were dropping out of the race.
Ferguson, the Democratic frontrunner, said via X that Morgan’s motive is to “confuse voters and diminish votes.” Ferguson called the additions an “illegal scheme,” violating RCW 29a.84.320: “Duplicate, nonexistent, untrue names.”
I assume there’s a history of this kind of thing somewhere before right? Or did these guys just happen to watch the latest season of Fargo
A dem Florida state senator lost a race by like 31 out of 250,000 votes because of this tactic. The spoiler took 6000+
Those directly involved were arrested and are awaiting trial, but it still worked.
It was apprently coordinated by the state GOP and the largest state utility company, who had a grudge agaisnt the incumbent state senator.
That same company CEO apprently funneled money into 5 different spoiler attempts, each agaisnt a political that was advocating for climate change policies or for energy deregulation, and has since resigned because of it.
I’m relatively certain that JFK did similar during one of his earlier elections, but that’s going off memory of something I read a while ago.