More good news for Washington State Rep. Jaime Herrera in her bid to succeed Rep. Brian Baird in Washington's third congressional district: The Pacific County GOP decided at its convention this weekend to endorse her. 

The endorsement was unanimous, and followed a straw poll of convention attendees, in which Herrera captured 95 percent of the votes.

The motion to endorse was placed by Vince Shaudys, a South Bend community leader. 

Those backing the move reportedly felt strongly that with Republicans having their best opportunity in years to wrest the third district seat from Democratic control, it would behoove them to get behind one candidate at this point in the game.  This came despite what the Pacific County GOP said were warnings from Chairman Nansen Malin about endorsing prior to the August "top two" primary.

Last week, Herrera picked up the endorsement of the Cowlitz County GOP and former third district Rep. Linda Smith.  David Castillo, also running to succeed Baird in the third district, recently received the endorsement of FreedomWorks.  [intro]

The race to replace Rep. Brian Baird in Washington's third isn't the only one heating up, it looks like. This weekend, I got word that James Watkins, a Republican running against Rep. Jay Inslee in Washington's first district, commissioned a poll on the race-- a poll that shows Inslee walking into his re-election bid extremely vulnerable. Here's the text of the memo I received:

The James Watkins for Congress campaign has just commissioned a 1st Congressional District poll from Moore Information. Jay Inslee should be worried, because the poll shows he is vulnerable…extremely vulnerable.

Attached is a memo from Moore Info’s Hans Kaiser discussing the results. Here are some of the salient numbers:

• Only 37% say Inslee deserves re-election
• In a first head-to-head, Inslee gets 41%; Watkins gets 27%
• In a second head-to-head, after hearing the two candidates’ backgrounds, Watkins gets 44%; Inslee gets 42%
• 66% don’t know what Inslee’s greatest accomplishment is as a congressman
• 64% describe themselves as fiscal conservatives

The conventional wisdom on Inslee has been that he’s pretty much a shoo-in, given his easy wins in recent cycles. But these numbers put that notion to rest. ...

An eagle-eyed David Castillo fan sends along these clips of recent Castillo appearances at a) a tea party and b) a Thurston County GOP event.  Check 'em out.

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