Most of you regular folks probably hang up when pollsters interrupt a summer evening with a “short” phone survey that lasts 20 minutes or more. But we political reporters are built different. We sigh, start up our computers, hit record on our digital voice recorders and start reporting.
This is exactly what happened last week, when a pollster called RANGE reporter Daniel Walters’s cell phone to conduct a lengthy phone survey focused on local politics. The lady on the other end had many, many questions:
Did Daniel have positive or negative impressions of Bob Ferguson, the Spokane City Council, President Donald Trump and U.S. Rep Michael Baumgartner? Who did he plan to vote for in the next race for US representative and state house representative? What were his thoughts on tax measures for the Spokane Transit Authority and the Spokane library? What were his thoughts on a bunch of questions about natural gas regulations?
And how about next year’s race for mayor?
“It's too early to know who will run,” the surveyor asked, “but three potential candidates are Lisa Brown, Spokane's current Mayor; Betsy Wilkerson, Spokane City Council President; and Gavin Cooley, Spokane's former chief financial officer and current head of the Spokane Business Association.”
The Spokane Business Association was founded by industrial property developer Larry Stone, one of the biggest political donors in Spokane. Stone is a one-time progressive who has become a major critic of Mayor Lisa Brown. Brown, a former state Senate Majority leader, was once tarred as a radical leftist as Sandinista Lisa for her work with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in 1990, but long ago moderated to become part of the Democratic establishment.
The poll also floated a potential three-way Spokane City Council President race between current Council President Betsy Wilkerson and progressive council members Zack Zappone and Paul Dillon.
The pollster, however, did not identify who they were polling on behalf of. Was this a Larry Stone thing? Or maybe a political action committee like Let’s Go Washington, which successfully ran a pro-natural-gas state initiative in 2026? Or was this one of the other traditional political power players in Spokane, like the Spokane Home Builder’s Association or the Spokane Association of Realtors?
After all, the questions a pollster asks can be just as revealing as the answers they get back. Political polling isn’t cheap. It’s rarely simply a matter of curiosity. It had to be someone with deep pockets and equally deep stakes in the political landscape.
So Walters picked up the phone and started calling local politicos. Not I said, the Homebuilders. Not I said, the Realtors. Not I, said Gavin Cooley of the Spokane Business Association.
But Cooley had a guess for who it may have been instead: “Based only on the subject matter, Avista?”
Indeed, Avista Corp., a mid-sized power utility that holds a monopoly over parts of Eastern Washington, Idaho, Montana and Oregon, was the leading suspect for most of the folks RANGE contacted.
“I think it's interesting to be polling at this point," Brown told RANGE. "But from the nature of it, it seemed like it had a lot of energy related questions. That's probably an Avista thing."
So we reached out to the utility’s comms team.
"I did some asking around and discovered that we did indeed recently run a survey asking about the questions we spoke about" Avista Communications manager Lena Fuston wrote in an email.
That, unfortunately, was a big old conflict-of-interest for Walters, because his (beautiful, intelligent, etc.) wife works there. So he handed off the Avista part of the story to Aaron Hedge, who does not have even a single wife working at a local power utility. Here’s what Hedge found:
Survey part of a bigger landscape
Avista provides electric and natural gas power to 30,000 square miles of the Inland Northwest. Its annual revenue in 2025 was nearly $2 billion and it holds $3.271 billion value in stock shares. It owns 115 wind turbines; seven thermo-generation plants, which generate electricity from heat derived from steam; five natural gas plants; and eight hydroelectric plants drawing from 14 dams across the Pacific Northwest. Some power utilities are much larger — for example, the Texas utility Oncor has 10-fold the number of customers Avista serves.
Still, as one of only four publicly-traded companies based in the Spokane area, Avista is one of the community’s most important power brokers. It is also a state-regulated monopoly, meaning it’s the sole power provider in its operating territory. It has a strong incentive to cater to Washington’s energy laws, which are some of the nation’s most progressive, aimed at curbing climate change.
Like any large company, Avista needs to research its customers to make sure it’s serving their needs. The survey Avista commissioned this spring is part of a “broader, ongoing research effort” designed to help the company “understand how perspectives may be changing, particularly as energy policy and costs continue to evolve,” Funston said, in written comments to Hedge. She said the company typically does a similar survey each spring.
She said the survey results will likely not be released publicly, “although we may share general insights at a high level when they help provide context on the energy issues our customers are thinking about.”
She would not comment on how Avista chose which candidates to ask questions about.
“While questions related to local leadership or elections are inherently speculative, they are designed to provide context on the broader environment, not to support or influence any specific candidate or outcome,” she said.
The utility took over the local news cycle for a couple of days earlier this month when news organizations, including RANGE, reported that it was in talks with a “large load” customer to build a large data center somewhere near Spokane. That project would eventually consume 500 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 400,000 homes.
A few days later, the company paused those negotiations, saying it wanted to take customer feedback into consideration. Funston said the survey had nothing to do with any data center or large load customer.
“We’ve tried to be as transparent as we can about the purpose and general topics,” Funston wrote. “At the same time, we don’t typically share detailed survey design, vendors, or full results, as that work is considered proprietary and part of our internal research approach.”
Last month, three top officials at Avista held their first quarterly earnings call with investors and disclosed they were in early negotiations to power a data center, but they kept things vague with the media, instead calling it a “large load customer.”
Brown, Wilkerson, Dillon and Zappone told RANGE they’ve been hearing about the survey since they came into city government years ago — or earlier.
Wilkerson, Dillon and Zappone, the three potential city council president candidates polled by Avista, said there needs to be a strong framework to develop more power generation.
“The region is growing,” Wilkerson said. “We have to build capacity for economic development. But if we don't build it so they can come on our own terms by putting policies and ordinances in place and processes, then we'll just get what we get.”
Dillon and council members Sarah Dixit and Kate Telis introduced a year-long moratorium on approval for new data centers — which could imply more natural gas infrastructure — to Monday night’s City Council agenda. But when it came to finalize the agenda, it received only four votes; not enough to clear the five-vote threshold required to add agenda items last minute.
Zappone, who voted against adding it, told RANGE he didn’t have a good enough handle on it to know if it would impact the development of the Spokane Aerospace Tech Hub.
“ My understanding is part of it's for manufacturing, but part of it is subleasing to a data center within it that will be used to offset the cost of the construction,” Zappone said.
“I do not agree or support that thesis, Dillon told RANGE. "And if they are building a data center, then yes, they should not be exempt.”
Cooking with gas?
Natural gas has been a lightning rod in local politics for years.
In the years leading up to 2021, a City Council subcommittee focused on climate change had proposed banning natural gas hookups in new construction, but that proposal never went anywhere.
In 2021, the Spokane Home Builders Association launched the Spokane Cleaner Energy Protection Act, a ballot initiative that would have prohibited future city councils from imposing natural gas restrictions.
Avista employees formed a political action committee to support the ballot initiative, also called Prop 1 — not to be confused with the phantasmagoria of other props 1 —that would have forced Spokane to provide natural gas hookups for people who want to use it.
They donated nearly a quarter of a million dollars to the campaign. But a Superior Court judge struck the measure down, saying it dealt with administrative practices in the city, which exceeded the scope of ballot initiatives.
Avista Corp. itself sometimes spends money on candidates for office and ballot measures. For example, it gave Zappone the maximum of $2,400 last year during his reelection campaign, according to campaign disclosures. It also employs lobbyists who work at the state Capitol.
There is also a strong, well-funded world of advocacy to fight against even theoretical regulations on natural gas — one that is sometimes successful. For example, in 2024, Let’s Go Washington, a conservative organization that pushes right-wing ballot initiatives, convinced voters to approve ballot Initiative 2066, which required utilities and local governments to create infrastructure to provide natural gas to power consumers. Natural gas emissions accumulate in the atmosphere and let sunlight through but traps heat in the air, contributing to global warming.
Avista is not listed as a partner on Let’s Go Washington’s website dedicated to that initiative, but it’s basically the same as Spokane’s previous Prop 1. The major difference is I-2066 applies statewide rather than only to Spokane. That law is currently being challenged in the Washington Supreme Court.
Dillon expressed concerns about more development of natural gas, pointing to a 1999 gas pipeline explosion in Whatcom County that killed three people.
“I think people from across the political spectrum can appreciate the concerns around these issues, and we have to address that,” he said.
Smelling Gas
The survey was not a “push poll” — a stealth campaign ad — but it did appear to be very interested in testing messaging on natural gas regulations.
"Do you have a positive or negative opinion about natural gas or fuel for your home heating and cooking?”
“Some local governments in Washington are considering policies that require all new homes and buildings that be powered by electricity only, including for heating and cooking.”
It’s true some communities around the Pacific Northwest have been talking about banning the energy source, including Eugene, Oregon, which in 2023 became the first government in the state to do so. But natural gas is still very available — it generates about 33% of its electricity.
Charge an additional fee for natural gas hookups to homes and businesses? Require homeowners to replace their natural gas and appliances, such as furnaces, water heaters, stoves with electric appliances? Ban the use of natural gas appliances, such as furnaces and stoves, and new homes and businesses?
“The Washington legislature passed the Climate Commitment Act in 2021: It requires the natural and gas, electric utilities, or refineries, and large manufacturers to purchase pollution credits from the state. The cost to buy these pollution credits may be passed along to consumers.”
After noting that the credits would partially fund programs aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the pollster presented the question:
“Do you think the Climate Commitment Act is increasing, decreasing, or has no effect on the following: the cost of everyday goods you buy? Greenhouse gas emissions? Your monthly utility bills for electricity or natural gas?”
With that last one, the pollster followed up by asserting there was a correct answer:
“In fact, except for protected low-income customers, the Climate Commitment Act has increased the cost of utility bills for most residential natural gas customers, and the cost is expected to increase over time.”
Then the survey firm asked respondents to say whether they agreed more that “paying high gas bills is not worth it, especially with rising household costs especially with rising household costs” or “uncertainty about whether they will reduce greenhouse gases, or paying higher natural gas bills is worth it to support investments aimed at reducing greenhouse gases.”
One question asked respondents to rank spending priorities considered by potential local ballot initiatives, including spending taxpayer money on public education, public transportation, library services or public safety and criminal justice services.
Avista was one of the groups that convened the Safe and Healthy Task Force, a coalition of local leaders aimed at guiding how behavioral health and criminal justice dollars would be spent. Last week, it released a report that, despite being very long, did not define its priorities.
Avista’s survey aimed to ask the public to define its own priorities, asking how they would rank “treatment or reentry services aimed at reducing repeat offenses” vs. “increasing police presence in neighborhoods and downtown areas” vs “expanding jail capacity” vs targeting “public safety issues connected to homelessness, such as property crimes and sleeping on sidewalks in public parks.”
These are the kinds of priorities, of course, a Spokane mayor will have to weigh in the future, whether it be Lisa Brown or, say, Gavin Cooley or Betsy Wilkerson?
GRAND OLD COOLEY?
Informed that he was named as potential mayoral candidate on the survey, Cooley laughed and wrote that he’d “love to see the results.”
“Always thinking but nothing official,” Cooley said when asked if he was considered a run. He declined to do a longer interview about the topic.
Candidates have a reason to play coy about whether they’re running. Within two weeks of announcing a candidacy, even verbally, candidates must officially file with the state public disclosure commission. That triggers all sorts of reporting and bookkeeping requirements up until the election.
Historically, Cooley has often been on the ambiguous center-left politically, praising former City Council President Ben Stuckart’s handling of finances and harshly criticizing the financial management of conservative former Mayor Nadine Woodward. But he was a major booster of David Condon, the technocratic two-term Republican mayor, and in recent years, his advocacy has shifted to rightwing causes, like killing public transit expansions and road diets and lobbying against policies that protect renters.
In the last few years, his criticism has turned more explicitly against Brown. At the tail end of Woodward’s term, Cooley had been leading a multi-government effort to create a regional homelessness authority. But when Brown got into office, she unceremoniously nixed the project, complaining that the city would be spending too much money without getting enough control. Cooley felt betrayed.
To Brown, Cooley’s role on the Spokane Business Association soured their relationship. She objects to the association’s “videos, the full-page ads, the playing loose with statistics — I would say very loose with statistics — to the point where I just sort of shake my head.”
Wilkerson, for her part, scoffed at the notion that she might run for mayor.
“As always in our community, speculation runs amok around the political season. I have not expressed any interest in being mayor,” Wilkerson said. To start with, the mayor can only have one job. Running for mayor, she said, would require her to give up her assisted living business.
“That’s my passion,” she said.
She’s sticking to running for re-election as Spokane City Council president.
“As of now, I’m running until I’m not,” she said.
It isn’t clear whether Wilkerson was inserted into the mayoral poll because the pollster thought Wilkerson was likely to run for mayor, because they wanted to split the progressive vote to inflate Cooley’s apparent chances, or because they were just spitballing.
“Someone threw me in as a wild card,” Wilkerson said.
But there’s yet another outside possibility the poll may have been noodling over: that Lisa Brown doesn’t run for re-election. While Brown has already submitted her re-election paperwork, she hasn’t made the final call yet.
“The decision about mayor is something I'm gonna make at the end of the year,” Brown told RANGE. “As long as I can go and not be in campaign mode, the better. That's how I look at it."
