The Gortons and Slades - Washington Secretary of State

The famous Dan Evans “Hip Boots” TV com -
mercial from the 1988 Gorton-Lowry campaign.
Ian Stenseng/Washington Secretary
of State
the coMeBAcK 251
over the final weekend.
McGavick predicted they’d
win “by an eke.” On November
8, 1988, Washington’s
habitual ticket-splitters
returned Gorton to
the U.S. Senate by 40,000
votes out of 1.85 million
cast, 51.09 percent. They
favored Dukakis over
Bush—an easy winner
nationally—by about the
same margin. McGavick’s
strategy worked flawlessly.
To offset Lowry’s 50,000vote
margin in King County,
Gorton carried 27 of the
state’s 39 counties, rolling
up nearly a 32,000-vote
margin in the Tri- Cities,
home to 12,000 Hanford
workers. Gorton posted a
14,000-vote victory in Yakima
and decisively won
the war in the “defense”
counties: Kitsap, home to
the Bremerton Navy Yard
and the Bangor sub base;
Snohomish, hoping for a
home port, and Pierce,
home to Fort Lewis and
McChord Air Force Base.
For good measure, Gorton
also carried Clark, Bonker’s
home base. With Ritajean
Butterworth as field
director, McGavick had established
an energetic, well-
funded campaign organization in every county, big or small. And for playing
hardball he had no apologies. “We were helped by it. Absolutely.” 52