They were both local kids. Running against each other for office ‘has been kind of fun’

Spencer Hutchins and Adison Richards both grew up on the peninsula, and now are candidates running against each other for a seat in the state House to represent the 26th District.

They’re running for state Rep. Jesse Young’s seat, while Young runs for state Senate. The 26th District includes Gig Harbor, the Key Peninsula, Port Orchard, and other parts of Pierce and Kitsap counties.

The campaign officially brought their paths to cross, but they’d been in similar circles for years.

They see each other for campaign and race related events, but also have grown up in the same community and attend church across the street from each other.

“There’s a sense of mutual respect and that means the campaign has been kind of fun to some degree, being able to get along with the person you’re running against,” Hutchins told the Gateway Thursday.

Richards agreed and said it has allowed them to make the campaign about the community.

“The bigger thing is being able to focus on the issues,” Richards told the Gateway Thursday. “We’re able to focus on serving this community that we love and not making the campaign a personality contest. We’ve been able to make it about the people and what you all need.”

The primary was close. Richards got 24,900 votes (50.07%). Hutchins got 24,787 (49.84%). The general election is Nov. 8.

They both say they want to make the community that helped shape them better.

After the race, they said, maybe they’ll grab a beer together.

Spencer Hutchins (R)

Hutchins, 37, grew up in the district attending Gig Harbor High School.

Multiple teachers from the Peninsula School District challenged him to become the person he was meant to be, he told the Gateway.

Hutchins has been a part of two large projects in Gig Harbor.

During the first stages of the FISH Food Bank new building project, Hutchins was co-chair of the Feasibility Committee that studied whether they’d be able to successfully raise the money to build a new home for the food bank.

He was also co-chair of the Capital Campaign at FISH that raised the money for the new building project itself.

“I love being part of that project,” Hutchins said. “It gave me an up close and personal view of the real need we have for a food bank. We live in an affluent community where people’s needs aren’t necessarily visible to you every day.”

In 2017, the Gig Harbor City Council chose Hutchins to fill the seat vacated by Rahna Lovorich, who unexpectedly resigned. At the time Hutchins was a member of the Planning Commission.

Hutchins finished the last two years of what would’ve been Lovorich’s four year term.

“Given where my family and business was at the time, I made the personal decision to not run for reelection, but I was proud to serve out the unexpired term,” Hutchins told the Gateway.

During his time on council, he participated in plans for the Gig Harbors Sports Complex. This included talking to the YMCA, to discuss their budgeting process and grants.

“Since then I have stayed in contact and supported the YMCA in their heavy fundraising efforts to raise money to continue building the project,” Hutchins said. “It’s going to be a real gift to the whole community when completed. So many additional activities, events, and resources will be available.”

Hutchins co-owns Keller Williams West Sound Realty and operates Hutchins Home Group. Being a small business owner in the district has helped him understand the challenges the community is facing, he said.

“Our district specifically is experiencing a major cost of living crisis,” Hutchins said.

Between new taxes, increasing taxes, and the cost of goods and services rising, it’s made it more difficult for people to live and work in the community, he said.

“I see people working hard and having their cost of living grow further and further out of reach,” he said.

One of Hutchins’ goals is fiscal responsibility, he said.

“We need to be responsible about our taxing and spending,” Hutchins said. “We don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. When I get to Olympia, I will be engaged very heavily in the process of having a conversation around the priorities of our government and how we are spending the vast sums of money that are flowing into our state coffers.”

Other goals if elected are to support safe communities and strengthen transportation systems, he said. He believes these issues are largely policy driven.

He sees putting additional money toward policing as a solution, he said.

“We have to create a more robust recruiting and retention program to keep quality people in our police force and we have to roll back some of these very irresponsible changes to our criminal law,” Hutchins told the Gateway.

Specifically, he wants to repeal the changes in recent years to the laws governing police pursuits and penalties for drug possession.

Hutchins said the 26th District is a transportation hub with crucial transportation infrastructure that isn’t getting funded properly.

“What we have to do is fund transportation in a responsible way. And the way you do that is by getting all transportation related revenues into the transportation budget,” Hutchins said.

Right now, he believes too much of it is in the state’s general fund.

When it comes to abortion rights, he said he believes a state Legislature needs to respect the initiative put in place by voters, regardless of the subject.

“I come at this issue with a lot of empathy and compassion,” Hutchins said. “I believe that the laws in the state of Washington on abortion rights were set in place a long time ago by the voters in this state by initiative. I respect the will of the voters.”

Hutchins is endorsed by state Rep. Jesse Young, state Rep. Michelle Caldier, and former state Sen. Jan Angel. His full endorsement list can be found here.

Public Disclosure Commission records show Hutchins has raised $233,389.76.

Additional resources for information about Spencer Hutchins:

Website: https://electspencerhutchins.com/

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ElectSpencerHutchins/

Who’s paying for the campaign? https://www.pdc.wa.gov/political-disclosure-reporting-data/browse-search-data/candidates/93155/contributions

Adison Richards (D)

Adison Richards, 30, also grew up in Gig Harbor, but attended Hutchins’ rival, Peninsula High School, where he ran cross country.

Now he’s one of the coaches of the cross country and track team at the high school. He values helping kids in the community and making sure they have the opportunity to succeed after high school, he said.

One of the goals of his campaign is to improve the education system.

“I hope to expand access to trades and or career and technical education pathways,” Richards said. “I support changing graduation requirements for students who want to pursue trades.”

He plans to address the childcare crisis by helping create universal preschool, making sure that every student has access to the starting line at the same time, he said.

“I’m not a person who believes in free college, but one who believes that college needs to be affordable enough to also have a job while attending classes,” Richards said.

He believes the Legislature should meet students in the middle, making it affordable to work a job and pay for school.

He also grew up working for his dad who is a small business owner of a landscaping company.

“I want our state to do better by small businesses,” Richards told the Gateway. “Work on lowering business and occupation taxes, clearing up regulations and working on giving them accounting, licensing and insurance assistance.”

After finishing law school at Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law in 2018, he returned to the district as a lawyer, spending the past few years at nonprofits like the Northwest Justice Project, where he worked with people experiencing domestic violence and human trafficking.

“Some of my clients were living paycheck to paycheck, not always being able to afford a lawyer,” he said.

He continues to do pro bono work for Kitsap Legal Services.

“I value trying to use my experiences to give back to the community any way I can,” Richards said.

He credits his parents for teaching him the value of hard work.

His dad showed him how to push through long summer days, where they were digging irrigation trenches in the sun, he said. His mom was a teacher, he said, and he saw her putting in long hours after school grading papers and lesson planning to make sure that her students were successful.

Richards is a member of Gig Harbor Rotary Club. At one point he was a community service chair and installed free food pantries around the community. He’s also on the board of the Harbor History Museum and his church.

Some may have heard him while listening to the music groups, “Down Home Band” on the Key Peninsula, founded by Dr. William Roes, and “Awesome Praise” up in Bremerton.

He said he is part of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Bremerton, and has volunteered with an organization called Scarlet Road in Kitsap County to help survivors of trafficking.

Other issues he will focus on if elected are addressing public safety and infrastructure, he said.

In order to increase public safety, he supports funding first responders and law enforcement. He said there’s not enough law enforcement officers in unincorporated Pierce County, “and it leads to really slow response times.”

He’s heard frustrations from business owners in the district who can’t get a full night’s sleep because they get woken up by their security systems when people break in or prowl, he said.

“The state punts a lot of public safety and criminal justice work to the county level,” Richards said. “And that ends up creating a lot of issues with funding for law enforcement, the court system, victim advocates and other personnel that I’m talking about.”

Infrastructure challenges are immense because of a failure of representation for the past decade, he said.

“Our Republican representatives did not deliver projects for our district, including in the 2015 transportation package,” Richards said. “Our district did not get any projects from a bipartisan deal. And that’s one of the failures. It was only until this year that bridge tolls went down for the first time ever.”

He points to specific infrastructure items that need improvement.

“We have high bridge tolls, a failing Fox Island bridge, and needs to expand internet access that all cannot go ignored another year,” Richards said.

As for abortion rights, Richards supports reproductive freedom and politicians staying out of that decision, he said.

“It should be between a woman and her doctor,” Richards said.

Richards is endorsed by Congressman Derek Kilmer; state Sen. Emily Randall; Pierce County council member Derek Young; Bremerton Mayor Greg Wheeler; and five of the Gig Harbor council members. His full endorsement list can be found here.

Public Disclosure Commission records show Richards has raised $190,749.63.

Additional resources for information about Adison Richards:

Website: https://www.adisonrichards.com/

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/voteforadison/

Who’s paying for the campaign? https://www.pdc.wa.gov/political-disclosure-reporting-data/browse-search-data/candidates/567415

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the results of the primary election. Richards got 24,900 votes (50.07%). Hutchins got 24,787 (49.84%).