Most of the 1,800 delegates at the Washington State Republican Party gathering in Spokane on Saturday backed Semi Bird, who used to be on the Richland school board.
“We will come together, we will unite,” Bird told a crowd that loved him. “We will celebrate and help each other because we need to bring Washington state back to life and make it great again for the people.”
Bird used to be on the Richland school board. Before he was called back last year, he voted to get rid of the Covid mask rules in 2021.
Even Republicans have problems with him.
The party’s candidate committee tried to kick him out of the race on Friday for not telling the committee about financial crimes he committed 30 years ago, but most of the delegates ruled against them with loud boos and chants of “bullshit.”
Former Congressman Dave Reichert dropped out of the support process before the vote. Reichert is far ahead of Bird in the polls and in raising money. Reichert, who wants to stay in the race, said in a phone chat on Sunday that the rules about getting kicked out of the race because of an endorsement kept changing.
“I got discouraged with the split party groups and decided it wasn’t worth going through a dishonest process,” Reichert said. “And they don’t really need to back me up.”
The head of the Washington State Republican Party, Jim Walsh, disagreed with that description.
“By and large, we didn’t change the rules.” “I mean, rules are often changed at any convention,” Walsh said Friday. “This is about how you look at it. The reason some people don’t like real gatherings is that they are hard to plan for.
Since the state changed its rules so that the top two vote-getters, no matter what party they are, win the August primary, this is the first gathering of its kind for Republicans. It was an early attempt to bring the party together so that too many Republican candidates wouldn’t split the vote so much that only Democrats would make it to the general election.
Reichert and Bird are likely to be the two most well-known Republicans on the August primary vote. Attorney General Bob Ferguson and state Sen. Mark Mullet are the most well-known Democrats. There are also a lot of less well-known people running, and more may join before the May 10 deadline.
“We’re making history,” Bird told reporters on Saturday after the vote for the support. The first Black American ever backed by the Republican Party of Washington State for governor in the history of Washington State. Print that out. Please let someone know about that.”
