(The Center Square) – Two Bob Fergusons have withdrawn their short-lived candidacy for governor after state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, also a candidate for governor, threatened the other guys with legal action.
The two Robert Fergusons, located in separate parts of Washington state, filed with the Secretary of State’s Office to run for governor last week. If they had remained on the ballot, they would have appeared higher up on the list of gubernatorial candidates than Attorney General Ferguson, who would have appeared thirteenth.
At a press conference on Monday, Ferguson warned if they did not withdraw by the end of the day he would call for local prosecutors to pursue legal action against them for running afoul of a state law that forbids people to intentionally run for office who have the same surname as a “widely known” person also pursuing the same elected position. At the press conference with him was former King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg.
On X, formerly known as Twitter, Attorney General Ferguson posted on his campaign account that “we defeated their dirty tricks. Both fraudulent candidates withdrew. You won’t have to worry about which “Bob Ferguson” to vote for. This blatant attack on election integrity failed, and democracy wins.”
One of the Robert Ferguson’s wrote in a statement that he withdrew from the race “under duress. In a typical hypocritical fashion, this other candidate’s actions are the true threat to democracy. I believe this shows that the other candidate fears he has not effectively done enough to stand out, or that he thinks voters are not competent enough to think for themselves.”
