(PresidentialWire.com)- Tiffany Smiley has a huge challenge in trying to unseat incumbent Democratic Senator Patty Murray in Washington.
But, Smiley, a Republican who considers herself a political outsider, thinks she has a pretty good chance. In the second quarter of the year, she raised $2.6 million for her campaigning, bringing her war chest total to $3.5 million.
At 71 years old, Murray has been representing the state of Washington in the Senate since back in 1993, which was the first year that President Bill Clinton was in the White House. She serves as the chairwoman of the powerful Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in the Senate.
Murray is also considered a potential replacement for Chuck Schumer, the current Senate majority leader, at the head of the Democratic caucus should he ever lose re-election or decide to step aside.
She’s also running for office as a liberal in a blue state that voted for President Joe Biden by a 58% to 39% margin over Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. All of these facts are pointing to Murray being shielded from the general distaste voters have in their minds toward the Democratic Party right now.
But, despite all of this, the 41-year-old Smiley still thinks she has a good chance to win. As she told the Washington Examiner last week:
“I’m a political outsider. I’m a first-time candidate. Our family knows how to build from the bottom up. It’s absolutely phenomenal what we’ve been able to accomplish with our message.”
Smiley has said that her campaign has been able to attract donations from more than 40,000 people. She’s also visited all 39 counties in the state of Washington, and has knocked on the doors of more than 200,000 families to spread her campaign’s message.
Smiley’s husband Scotty is a combat veteran with the army who was left blind in both of his eyes after a suicide bombing in Iraq. When that happened, the Army wanted to immediately approve Scotty’s discharge papers, but the family refused.
Scotty ended up serving as the first active-duty Army officer who was blind. The family even wrote a book, “Hope Unseen,” based on the situation and has given a few speeches.
Tiffany Smiley said that she would bring that same message to the nation’s capital if she were elected to the Senate. She said that Murray hasn’t done much at all in recent years as she’s just skated by with re-election after re-election. In the process, she’s ignored many issues that people from Washington state have been facing.
Some of those main issues include out-of-control crime, rates of addiction to narcotics, rising costs of energy and inflation, as well as disruptions of the supply chain.
As Smiley explained:
“The first step we need to take is to get inflation under control, become energy independent, get families back to work. We have some of the highest gas prices in the nation. But, inflation is number one, and then crime, and a fentanyl crisis, which is deeply affecting Washington.”
