Meet Matt Larkin, House Candidate in Washington’s 8th District

CLAY: We are headed out right now to the Seattle area. We have a new iHeart, Seattle affiliate. We appreciate all of you out there at KPTR-AM 1090, The Patriot.

We are joined now by Matt Larkin, who is a House candidate in Washington’s 8th Congressional district. This is a potential pickup, I believe. Matt, you can explain the district, where it is and what you are hearing from your Seattle area, potential constituents, and what we can do to help get you across the finish line there.

LARKIN: Yeah. Hey, thanks for having me on today. This is great. Yeah, I’m running out in Washington’s 8th Congressional district. It’s a diverse district in that it covers both sides of the state. It’s kind of unusual that way. You have the rural ag side and the eastern side, and then on the west you have parts of the Seattle suburbs. King County, Microsoft is headquartered there and all sorts of things like that. So, it’s a very interesting district, but it’s a race that we can win. We can actually pick this thing up.

It was a Republican seat for 30 years, and then we lost it in 2018, which, if you remember, was a bad year for Republicans across the country. But now we have the tailwinds. This is our year in 2022, because presidents lose seats in their first midterms. They just do historically. So, this is an exciting, exciting race. It’s a coin flip right now. Cook has it as a toss-up and we’re sprinting to the finish because we have a message and we’re excited to win this thing back to the Republican side.

BUCK: Hey, Matt, it’s Buck. I’m just going to go out on a limb here. I can’t follow every congressional race with tremendous precision, because a lot of congressional races, yours obviously getting some attention. We’re so pleased to have you on the show. But I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that your Democrat opponent is laser focused on the insurrection of January 6th and abortion. Am I am I getting that one right?

LARKIN: Laser focused. And I bet you can guess what we’re laser focused on.

BUCK: Crime, immigration, inflation.

LARKIN: Yeah, those are the issues we’re hearing about at the doors, Buck. We’re hearing it and I firsthand, I’ve covered thousands of doors by this point, literally thousands. And that’s what I’m hearing. Inflation, inflation, inflation, crime, crime, crime. “Do something,” is what they say. This is out of control. And just to put it into perspective for you guys. Egg prices in my district up here in Washington are up 40%, milk and cereal are up 20%. I’ve got four little kids, 12 and under, three boys and a girl, by the way, the girl rounds out the group and you wouldn’t believe how many eggs, Cheerios and gallons of milk we go through.

BUCK: Can I just add, I’m also going to assume that in your district, based on where it is in Washington, you get a lot of people that were either in or right around Seattle who have moved a little bit further out. And so they’re kind of fleeing the urban decay of the the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, etc..

LARKIN: Yes. No, you’re exactly right. And I grew up in Seattle, frankly, and I don’t live there anymore. I’m embarrassed of my city and I shouldn’t be. It’s such a beautiful part of the country. It’s such a beautiful city and it’s a disaster right now. So people are, they’re fleeing the decay of Seattle, coming out to the suburbs and trying to raise a family out here. But the problem is the crime and the homelessness and the drugs are following people out of Seattle.

They’re not just Seattle problems anymore. They used to be where we could just roll our eyes and say, “Okay, well, Seattle will be Seattle.” Now, it’s not that way anymore. It’s even over on the east side of the state, we’re seeing homelessness and drug abuse and crime. And, in fact, just the other day where we live, which is not in Seattle, by the way, but in and around the district, we had two friends with cars stolen out of their driveways and totally different sides of the district and within two days of each other. And this kind of crime, this kind of property crime is happening everywhere and people are sick of it, which is why, guys, we rolled out our campaign slogan a year ago, which is Make Crime Illegal Again. And it’s catching on for good reason because people feel like crime is legal right now in Washington State. We’ve got to do something about it.

CLAY: Matt, I’m glad you mentioned it because we’re we’ve had a lot of people from Oregon on. Obviously, there are many competitive races there. We’ve had a lot of people on in Washington in competitive races, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, three of the most beautiful cities in the United States and, frankly, in the world. And they’ve all been destroyed, at least right now, by left wing political decision-making.

And you mentioned, Matt, you’ve got four kids. You came out. We met face to face because you have overlapping good friends that actually live in my neighborhood. It was great to meet you face to face. And for anybody out there listening, I want you to make sure you go support Matt. I’ve met him. He’s a great guy. But how much anger is there still among the moms and dads in your district over the way that Washington State handled covid and the amount of school that their kids missed?

LARKIN: Oh, tons. I mean, we were one of the most restrictive states in the country, if not the most. We’re still, just so you know, guys, we’re still under emergency control by the governor. He’s lifting it in the next three days, I think, finally.

BUCK: Oh, okay. Just before the election, the emergency powers for covid that never existed in the first place? That seems like the timing is suspect.

LARKIN: Go figure. Right. People are mad. People are pissed off. We lost a year of our kids education and that’s going to catch up to my youngest was in kindergarten last year. Not my youngest. My second youngest was in kindergarten last year and he wore masks all year. That takes a toll on kids. These things, these lost educational years that we have, make parents extremely upset. And it’s not just Republican parents, by the way.

Democrat parents feel the same way. They feel like they didn’t have a say in their kids education or anything to do with their kids’ school. And there’s a residual effect there. I think you’re going to see a pushback come Election Day here because there’s just this palpable anger that they feel like they don’t have voices or choices in their kids’ education anymore.

CLAY: So, Matt, as we come down the stretch run here, it’s sometimes difficult to kind of coalesce momentum nationwide. But what are you feeling about the chances of flipping this district and helping to send Nancy Pelosi back packing, kicking her out of the speaker’s chair? How much are the issues nationalized versus localized in your Seattle area?

LARKIN: Sure. I think they’re very nationalized. I think, I mean, it might be more pronounced here. The crime and the drugs are more pronounced here because we probably have it worse than most places in the country. But we’re seeing the same anger that I’m hearing about in the national polls here on the ground. The top-two issues that we poll are inflation and crime over and over and over again. So that tracks with national trends. We’re confident we’re going to win this thing.

In fact, Kevin McCarthy’s coming out for me next week to help me get some momentum and get some people fired up. They’re putting lots of money behind me to get us over the finish line here. In fact, this is, I think, become the top-ten most expensive congressional race in the country right now. So there’s a lot of momentum and half of winning is peaking at the right time and we are peaking at the right time.

We’re going to get over this finish line. And it’s really, really exciting because people realize, guys, my opponent is not a moderate. She tries to be, tends to be a moderate, but she’s not. She votes with Pelosi 100% of the time, not 98 or 97. I am not rounding up — like she literally votes 100% of the time with Pelosi in a purple district. And that’s not what the district needs right now.

CLAY: Matt, we also have had Tiffany Smiley on and I think we’re going to have her on again. She’s been running a heck of a campaign in the Senate against Patty Murray. I’m sure you guys have crossed paths a decent amount as well. If we get a big enough Red Wave, I think there’s a chance Patty Murray gets swept out. What does that say about the overall market for Republicans right now in Washington State in general? Have you ever seen Republicans on the ascent like this?

LARKIN: You know, there hasn’t been this close of a Senate race in a long time, I’ll tell you that. And Tiffany’s fantastic. She’s got three little kids about the same age as a mine. And she’s a fired-up mom who’s pissed off at what’s going on? Kind of like my wife and I. We’re just mad about the direction that the state’s going in. I think she’s got a real good chance to send Patty Murray packing. Patty should be scared right now, but it shows that the people are angry here in Washington and they’re blaming, and rightfully so, the people in power.

So, I think Tiffany’s going to win her race. I really do. And I think we’re going to win our race. And and it’ll send a signal to people across the country that even in reliably blue Washington, people are fed up with the status quo and they want changes.

BUCK: Matt Larkin running up in Washington. We want you to win, but how can people help? We got a big audience in the Seattle area and across the state.

LARKIN: Sure, spread the word. Spread the word. We’ve got a great website it’s Larkin4Congress.com, Larkin4Congress.com. Jump on, donate. We need money to finish our ad campaign strong. We need volunteers. So sign up to help. This is a grassroots campaign and we have the volunteers. We’ve got the doorbells. We need more helpers, though, always. So, tell 20 people to vote for Matt Larkin for Congress in the 8th Congressional district. And we can do this thing. It’s going to be a close race, but we’re going to win.

CLAY: Matt, good luck, my man. I appreciate you coming on and we’ll do everything we can down the stretch to help you out.

LARKIN: Thank you, guys, so much. Great to be here.