Chris Reykdal leads for OSPI; Maia Espinoza not far behind and many voters undecided

Of the nine posi­tions in Wash­ing­ton’s exec­u­tive depart­ment, only one is “non­par­ti­san”: the Office of Super­in­ten­dent of Pub­lic Instruc­tion (OSPI), which is respon­si­ble for the admin­is­tra­tion and over­sight of the state’s pub­lic schools.

The lack of a par­ty label on the bal­lot means there’s less infor­ma­tion for vot­ers to go on when con­tem­plat­ing who to sup­port in this impor­tant down­bal­lot race.

This year, vot­ers will be choos­ing between incum­bent Chris Reyk­dal — who nar­row­ly won the job four years ago in a spir­it­ed con­test with NPI guest con­trib­u­tor Erin Jones — and Maia Espinoza, a right wing can­di­date who holds extreme views, oppos­es com­pre­hen­sive sex­u­al health edu­ca­tion, and has false­ly accused Reyk­dal of want­i­ng to teach sex­u­al posi­tions to fourth graders.

Ear­li­er this month, NPI com­mis­sioned a statewide sur­vey of Wash­ing­to­ni­ans in which we asked like­ly vot­ers who they were sup­port­ing for OSPI. We found 30% in sup­port of Reyk­dal, 23% in sup­port of Espinoza, and 47% not sure.

No incum­bent in our sur­vey polled as low as Reyk­dal did. Undoubt­ed­ly, that’s in part due to the fact that this is a “non­par­ti­san” race with no par­ty labels next to the can­di­dates’ names. But Reyk­dal’s lack of vis­i­bil­i­ty is also prob­a­bly a fac­tor.

Reyk­dal has par­tic­i­pat­ed in some of Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee’s COVID-19 press con­fer­ences, but it seems that he is not as well known to the elec­torate as oth­er incum­bents seek­ing reelec­tion to down­bal­lot offices in the state.

Even Repub­li­can State Trea­sur­er Duane David­son, who is per­haps the most endan­gered incum­bent run­ning this cycle (he was best­ed by Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lenger Mike Pel­lic­ciot­ti in the Top Two) out­polled Reyk­dal.

Reyk­dal’s chal­lenger Maia Espinoza has not gained much trac­tion either.

Although Espinoza is enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly backed by the same peo­ple who qual­i­fied Ref­er­en­dum 90, only 23% of respon­dents to our sur­vey expressed sup­port for her can­di­da­cy, where­as Don­ald Trump and can­di­dates able to iden­ti­fy as Repub­li­cans on the bal­lot con­sis­tent­ly received sup­port of at least thir­ty per­cent or more.

Reyk­dal gar­nered 40.24% of the vote in the August Top Two elec­tion, while Espinoza was in sec­ond place with 25.28%. Four oth­er can­di­dates were elim­i­nat­ed, one of whom is a peren­ni­al­ly unsuc­cess­ful can­di­date.

Reyk­dal and Espinoza would undoubt­ed­ly both ben­e­fit from being able to run as can­di­dates who can state a par­ty pref­er­ence on the bal­lot, though Reyk­dal would like­ly ben­e­fit more due to the state’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic tilt. Though the race is offi­cial­ly “non­par­ti­san”, in prac­tice it is any­thing but: Reyk­dal has strong and firm Demo­c­ra­t­ic sup­port; the Repub­li­can Par­ty is back­ing Espinoza.

Reach­ing vot­ers statewide is dif­fi­cult and expen­sive, and the chal­lenge is mag­ni­fied in a low pro­file down­bal­lot race. Reyk­dal’s cam­paign has put togeth­er a mail­er that empha­sizes that he is a Demo­c­rat, through and through, with ser­vice to the peo­ple of Wash­ing­ton State as a Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­is­la­tor.

Espinoza, mean­while, has been robo­call­ing vot­ers with false claims about Reyk­dal.

It turns out that in addi­tion to lying about Reyk­dal, Espinoza is also fab­ri­cat­ing details about her­self in an attempt to look like a more cred­i­ble can­di­date.

The Wash­ing­ton State Wire did some dig­ging into Espinoza­’s back­ground last month and found that she has not com­plet­ed the mas­ter’s degree from West­ern Gov­er­nors Uni­ver­si­ty that she lists in her voter’s pam­phlet state­ment.

Espinoza­’s sup­port­ers, like Repub­li­can State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Michelle Caldier, have tried to brush this off as a rook­ie mis­take from a first time can­di­date.

But lying to vot­ers about one’s aca­d­e­m­ic cre­den­tials is an extreme­ly seri­ous mat­ter, and Repub­li­cans have made it an issue in oth­er races in the past.

Espinoza­’s non­prof­it, the “Cen­ter for Lati­no Lead­er­ship”, has also false­ly claimed on its web­site to be oper­at­ing as a fed­er­al­ly rec­og­nized 501(c)(3) char­i­ty, when in fact it was not — a fact brought to light by The Asso­ci­at­ed Press.

From the AP:

Espinoza declined to pro­vide an equiv­a­lent tax fil­ing for her orga­ni­za­tion and said she has nev­er claimed dona­tions are tax deductible in her fundrais­ing efforts. She said the Cen­ter for Lati­no Lead­er­ship has been try­ing to apply for 501©3 sta­tus for years but ran into issues with its account­ing firm.

“It’s been a process for sure but we’ve been dili­gent in oper­at­ing as a C3,” Espinoza said in an email.

Ran into issues with its account­ing firm? Sounds like “the dog ate my home­work.”

It’s telling that the Cen­ter for Lati­no Lead­er­ship had been months delin­quent in renew­ing its cor­po­rate reg­is­tra­tion at the state lev­el at the time the Asso­ci­at­ed Press checked into the orga­ni­za­tion’s legal stand­ing. Two days after the AP inquired about the Cen­ter’s sta­tus, its annu­al report was belat­ed­ly filed.

If the orga­ni­za­tion can’t even file its annu­al report in a time­ly man­ner, then there’s no rea­son to believe Espinoza is being truth­ful when she says her non­prof­it has been “dili­gent in oper­at­ing as a C3.”

And there’s no rea­son to believe her advi­sors are capa­ble of prop­er­ly advis­ing her giv­en that they don’t seem to under­stand non­prof­it law at all:

Alex Ybar­ra, a Repub­li­can leg­is­la­tor rep­re­sent­ing east­ern Wash­ing­ton in the state House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, said he’s been on the board of the cen­ter since its incep­tion. He ini­tial­ly con­firmed the orga­ni­za­tion was a 501(c)(3), but an hour lat­er when informed of the dis­crep­an­cy said he doesn’t know about its tax sta­tus and deferred to Espinoza.

Ybar­ra said his role is advi­so­ry and he has nev­er reviewed the organization’s paper­work or approved its bud­get.

“It’s not some­thing I ever looked at. I don’t know what a 501(c)(3) tax sta­tus is,” Ybar­ra said. “I’m more a polit­i­cal sound­ing board for her.”

Yikes!

Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ybar­ra: please take an after­noon to read the IRS’ guid­ance on exempt orga­ni­za­tions. It’s tru­ly embar­rass­ing that you’re so igno­rant that you told a reporter you don’t know what 501(c)(3) tax sta­tus is. You are one of Wash­ing­ton’s nine­ty-eight state rep­re­sen­ta­tives. You need to know what fed­er­al tax exempt sta­tus is. Also, say­ing you’re on the board of a non­prof­it when you’re actu­al­ly not is mak­ing a false rep­re­sen­ta­tion. Don’t ever do that again.

Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic lead­ers have an event planned for tomor­row at noon aimed at rais­ing Reyk­dal’s pro­file and sound­ing the alarm over the false and dan­ger­ous things that Espinoza has been say­ing. Con­sid­er­ing how many respon­dents to our sur­vey said right before the vot­ing began that they’re not sure who they’re going to vote for, that’s a very smart move on their part.

Vot­ing in the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion is cur­rent­ly in progress and is set to con­clude on Novem­ber 3rd, 2020 at 8 PM Pacif­ic in Wash­ing­ton State.