Jim Walsh for Governor?
Of course I’m looking at it’: Jim Walsh eyes a 2028 run for governor
May 29, 2026, 5:30 AM
State Rep. Jim Walsh (R-Aberdeen), chairman of the Washington State Republican Party, confirmed he is actively discussing a potential 2028 gubernatorial run while pushing to build conservative voter turnout infrastructure across the state. (Washington State GOP)
Seattle Red
State Rep. Jim Walsh has not announced a gubernatorial campaign, but he is not pretending the question is hypothetical. The Aberdeen Republican and Washington State Republican Party chairman confirmed that he has been actively talking to people about a 2028 run and wants to start building the infrastructure now.
The conversation came up organically during a discussion about the income tax fight on The Jason Rantz Show on Seattle Red 770 AM, when a listener texted in asking whether Walsh would throw his hat in the ring. His answer was not a deflection.
“Of course I’m looking at it,” Walsh said. “I’ve been talking with people about it for a while.”
The problem Walsh says has to be fixed before anything else
Walsh has a specific theory of why Republicans keep losing statewide in Washington, and it is not the one most people default to.
“We’ve got to build our ground game as conservatives in Washington State, so we can get out the vote,” Walsh told the show. “The challenge in the statewide elections has been voter turnout. Too many conservative and even moderate voters in Washington are discouraged and disheartened, and they don’t believe the system is trustworthy, and they don’t vote. So what I’m working on for the next year or two is restoring at least some of that confidence in the system that it’s worth voting, so that we can, so your vote will get counted, and maybe we can get a better person, so sure I’m talking about it. Other people are looking at it too.”
Walsh is not saying conservatives lack candidates or messaging; he is saying too many of their voters have already given up on the process. Before he can run a credible statewide campaign, he believes he has to persuade those voters that their ballots will count. His work on election integrity, including his public push after hundreds of undelivered King County ballots turned up near a Renton dumpster, fits directly into that argument.
No messy primary, a full slate
Walsh was specific about what a 2028 run would and would not look like. He is not interested in a drawn-out primary fight that leaves the eventual nominee weakened heading into the general.
“We’re not going to have like a bloody primary in 2028, but there’ll be some talks, there’ll be some people interested. We’ll have a few people with their hat in the ring, but my goal is to get it cleared up early enough in the 2028 election cycle that we don’t, we’re not divided, we can unite behind the best slate,” Walsh said. “And it’s not just governor. It’s state attorney general, it’s commissioner of public lands, it’s insurance commissioner, there are elected positions in the state, and we need good people in all of them, so I’d like to be able to work it so that we could put together a good slate, a group of people who can run together, and then get out the vote. The get out the vote part is the key part.”
That is a more organized and top-down approach than Washington Republicans have typically managed. Walsh’s vision is not just getting himself elected; it is fielding a coordinated ticket across multiple offices and running them as a team. Whether that level of discipline is achievable inside a party that has seen its share of convention-floor drama is a legitimate question, but Walsh is clearly thinking beyond a single race.
Why 2028 sets up differently
As Seattle Red has reported throughout the income tax fight, Walsh has been running a multi-year strategy that combines lawsuits, ballot initiatives, and candidate recruitment. The 2026 midterms are part of that plan, as is the initiative campaign to repeal SB 6346. By the time 2028 arrives, Walsh believes voters will have watched Ferguson sign a record tax increase, defend it through a bruising legal battle, and face the consequences at the ballot box.
MyNorthwest noted as early as last year that Walsh was openly discussing the governor’s race and had begun mapping what a campaign might look like, making Tuesday’s comments the clearest signal yet that those conversations have been getting more serious.
Walsh closed the conversation on the show with a line that had the feel of something he has been sitting with for a while.
“We’re gonna turn this ship around,” he said.
Listen to The Jason Rantz Show on weekday afternoons from 3 p.m. – 7 p.m. on Seattle Red on 770 AM (HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here. Follow Jason Rantz on X, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook.
