Washington’s Fifth District Congressional race in 2018 is down by another candidate.
Eric Agnew of Liberty Lake had positioned himself as an independent, but now he has withdrawn from the race. His informal campaign slogan was Country over Party. He considers himself a fiscal conservative and somewhat progressive on social issues. He had hoped to attract support as a moderate who can work with both major political parties. But he found there isn’t enough support yet for that.
“Once I stepped back and took a look at where we were in the campaign and the benchmarks that we had set for us, we had to take an honest look at where we were at and realize that, at this point, we didn’t have a clear path to victory,” Agnew said.
So now, the business manager for Itron and adjunct professor in Gonzaga’s graduate school for business will look to support other independent candidates. He says there are signs that people are looking for alternatives to the two major parties. He believes it will be a slow process to build the political infrastructure needed to make third parties viable at the federal level.
“I think there’s lots of really good opportunities on down ballot races: city council or a House delegate race at the state level. We have lots of opportunities to start working on building a bench of independents and for people to see first hand that there can be a breakthrough there,” Agnew said.
Matthew Sutherland from Pullman had left the Democratic race late last year, leaving Lisa Brown as the main candidate from her party. Cathy McMorris Rodgers faces a Republican primary challenge from Jered Bonneau.
