7th Congressional District candidate Hughes expects to be McDermott’s November opponent

By Evan Smith

Democratic 7th Congressional District candidate Andrew Hughes says that he is confident that he will be Democratic Congressman Jim McDermott’s November opponent.

Hughes, McDermott, and fellow Democrats Don Rivers and Charles Allen are running in the Aug. 7 primary, along with Republicans Scott Sutherland and Ron Bemis, and independent Goodspaceguy.

The top two vote getters in the primary advance to the Nov. 6 general election. If that means a runoff between McDermott and Hughes, the district could have the first Democrat vs. Democrat congressional election since Washington's top-two system started four years ago.

That means a competitive election, Hughes said Monday, adding that if McDermott ends up facing a Republican in November, "he can just kick back and relax."

McDermott defeated a Republican opponent by an 84 percent to 16 percent margin in 2008 and an independent by an 83-17 margin in 2010.

Washington has had a couple of dozen one-party general elections over the last four years, but those have all been at the county or legislative-district level, often when no candidate from the other party ran in the primary.

Hughes notes that redistricting has made the district less safe for McDermott with the addition of Shoreline, Edmonds, Woodway and parts of Lake Forest Park that weren’t previously in the District, and the loss of Seattle's southeast quarter.

While Hughes has reported raising $246,624, almost half from himself, he said Monday that he is not spending it on advertising but is concentrating on meeting people around the district.

His message revolves around limiting the time a member spends in office, reforming the tax code and breaking the partisan gridlock in Congress.

He said that all tax laws should have a time limit -- long enough to allow businesses to make plans but short enough that the tax laws aren't full of tax breaks that have outlived their usefulness.