Jay Inslee (D) moves back into tossup territory in new poll of Washington governor's race

Rep. Jay Inslee (D) SurveyUSA for KING-TV. 5/8-9. Washington voters. MoE: ±4.2% (2/13-15 in parentheses):

Jay Inslee (D): 38 (39)
Rob McKenna (R): 40 (49)
Undecided 22 (12)

Back in February, it looked like the gubernatorial race was starting to slip away from the Democrats, with two polls by respected pollsters (national robo-pollster SurveyUSA and solid local pollster Elway) showing likely nominee Rep. Jay Inslee trailing Republican state AG Rob McKenna by 9 or 10 point margins. Since then, a couple newsworthy things happened: one, Inslee relented to pressure from Democratic insiders to resign his seat in Congress and focus full-time on the gubernatorial race, and two, the usually wonky McKenna lost his cool in front of rolling cameras. Neither of those seemed like particularly game-changing events'in fact, if you were to believe the local media, Inslee's resignation was only going to hurt him more in terms of exposing his ambitions and the allegedly huge costs of the special election to replace him'but, whatever the reason, the tenor of the race has seemingly changed since then.

Taking not just SurveyUSA's trendlines into account, but also the previous three polls in the race, two internals from Democratic pollster Grove (one of which showed a 38-38 tie and one a 38-34 Inslee lead) and one from PPP (which showed a 42-42 tie), there's increased cause for optimism here. I wouldn't ascribe the movement to either Inslee's resignation or McKenna's snapping as much as a simple matter of Democrats getting more engaged in the race and Inslee (who, unlike two-term AG McKenna, hasn't been elected statewide before) getting better known. But SurveyUSA's trendlines don't show that either: They simply show McKenna's share dwindling, to the benefit of "undecided." So, it may be more of a case of suburban swing voters who'd been leaning toward McKenna out of a sense of "Democrats have been in charge too long" starting to hedge their bets, especially as voters learn more about McKenna's not-so-moderate social issues stances.

There's still one other area where Inslee is lagging, though, and that's fundraising. Washington mandates monthly (not quarterly) financial reporting, and the April reports showed McKenna padding his financial advantages even though he was able to raise funds only for 19 days out of the month (as a state official, he's unable to raise money while the legislature is in session). McKenna raised $643K, while Inslee raised $449K, along with a $75K infusion from the state Democratic Party. Given his name rec deficit compared with McKenna, Inslee needs to be stockpiling money now to be competitive on the airwaves in the fall, when that last 22 percent is going to be finally engaging making up their minds.