Chaytan Inman

Chaytan Inman (Democratic Party) ran for election for Governor of Washington. He lost in the primary on August 6, 2024.

Inman completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2023. Click here to read the survey answers.

Elections

2024

General election

General election for Governor of Washington

Bob Ferguson defeated Dave Reichert in the general election for Governor of Washington on November 5, 2024.

	Candidate	%	Votes
✔	Bob Ferguson (D)	55.5	2,143,368
	Dave Reichert (R)	44.3	1,709,818
	Other/Write-in votes	0.2	8,202

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 3,861,388
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Nonpartisan primary election

Nonpartisan primary for Governor of Washington

The following candidates ran in the primary for Governor of Washington on August 6, 2024.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Bob Ferguson (D)	44.9	884,268
✔		Dave Reichert (R)	27.5	541,533
		Semi Bird (R)	10.8	212,692
		Mark Mullet (D)	6.0	119,048
		Leon Lawson (Trump Republican Party)	1.8	35,971
	Submit photo	Jim Daniel (R)	1.5	29,907
	Submit photo	Cassondra Hanson (D)	1.2	24,512
		EL'ona Kearney (D)	1.2	24,374
		Jennifer Hoover (R)	0.8	15,692
		Andre Stackhouse (G)	0.6	11,962
		Don Rivers (D)	0.5	9,453
	Submit photo	Martin Wheeler (R)	0.4	7,676
		Chaytan Inman (D)	0.3	6,427
		Ricky Anthony (D)	0.3	6,226
	Submit photo	Jeff Curry (Independent Party)	0.3	6,068
		Fred Grant (D)	0.3	5,503
		Brian Bogen (No party preference)	0.2	4,530
		A.L. Brown (R)	0.2	4,232
		Michael DePaula (L)	0.2	3,957
		Rosetta Marshall-Williams (Independence Party)	0.2	2,960
		Jim Clark (No party preference)	0.1	2,355
	Submit photo	Edward Cale (D)	0.1	1,975
		Alex Tsimerman (Standup-America Party)	0.1	1,721
		Bill Hirt (R)	0.1	1,720
	Submit photo	Frank Dare (Independent Party)	0.1	1,115
		Alan Makayev (Nonsense Busters Party)	0.1	1,106
		William Combs (Independent Party)	0.1	1,042
	Submit photo	Brad Mjelde (No party preference)	0.1	991
		Ambra Mason (Constitution Party) (Write-in)	0.0	0
	Submit photo	Bobbie Samons (No party preference) (Write-in)	0.0	0
		Other/Write-in votes	0.1	1,347

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 1,970,363
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Campaign finance

Endorsements

Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Inman in this election.

Campaign themes

2024

Ballotpedia survey responses

Chaytan Inman completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2023. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Inman's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

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Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

We live in a broken system. Washington is on fire: droughts, severe heat waves, and wildfires are ravaging our state and our lives.

The machine is going up in smoke, we breathe it every summer. It's become a fact we cannot ignore and that none of our technology or laws have begun to fix. Capitalism makes us consume more and more. It powers an economy designed to destroy our own homes. Unmitigated capitalism has brought unmitigated disasters of wildfire, drought, poverty, melting glaciers, and rising seas. The system must change and change now it will. We will change the system to give back and tend the Earth when we take from it. We will hold the technocratic elite accountable for the destruction consumerism causes. We will create a society that prospers now and in the future. We're taking control of the future now.

My name is Chaytan. I love clean air, cold water, rain, trees, and humanity. But we're destroying ourselves and only a new system can change that.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

Self-Sustaining Washington
Resilient Washington
Educated Washington

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

I am driven by the vision of a future where we don't breathe smoke and destruction and we can deeply celebrate and replenish the resources we have. To this end, I am passionate about enfranchising the Earth.

We search for solutions to our destruction that we cause in technological breakthroughs and pin our hopes on far fetched sciences. This is a complete diversion. Technology may provide relief, but it does not address the context of a system that rewards exploitation of resources and people. That is where we have to start. We cannot outconsume overconsumption, or exploit away the life's exploitation. For example, electric vehicles rely on unsustainable exploitation of rare minerals like cobalt, and cheap, backbreaking mining labor in third world countries which itself creates immense toxic tailings. This is an unacceptable 'solution' to our destruction of the environment.

If we fundamentally give all life and resources legislative rights such that when we take resources from the ground, or pollute resources like clean air and water, then there is judicial and legislative recourse and we set the foundation for a system that values humanity and life on Earth. Enfranchising the earth allows the practices that best maintain life to compete with the destruction and exploitation unregulated globalized capitalism brings.

Washington will take responsibility and prosper. We will become the only state to truly tend our deep gifts that the life has given us.

What characteristics or principles are most important for an elected official?

A governor’s job is to empower and represent life, not govern it. We need someone who addresses the root of our self destruction, not the symptom, and someone who has the humility to seek less power, not more.

What was your very first job? How long did you have it?

The first job I can remember having was picking up sticks in our backyard. Every so often it happens in the Pacific Northwest that a grand wind storm comes and rips down strong Douglas Fir branches. As a kid, with the wind rapping at the window panes on dark gloomy mornings, we would find that these winter storms had strewn pinecones, twigs, sticks and pine needles across our backyard in an unholy cacophony. So begrudgingly, we bundled up and my mom, perhaps feeling merciful that day, would offer us a cent per stick we picked up. ( I recall in later years that after a little union protesting we got up to five). And so for the better part of one of those rainy, gray days we gathered fallen Douglas Fir sticks from the yard and put them in a yard waste can. When we got back inside to the crackling fireplace, we reported our totals and received our pay – as you can imagine, usually about $2.

I wouldn’t have admitted it at the time, and it may just be the nostalgia speaking, but I loved that job. I remember the clear air that smelled so poignantly of the pine needles and sap from the freshly snapped branches and was steeped in the smells of the mud from the fresh rains. The yard was a place I helped shape. I did not own it. I certainly did not control it. But I was a part of it. We tended the trees, the plants, we were a part of the water and nutrients that cycled through the soil, we shaped and prevented eroding soil and cared for the ecosystems of plants around the massive roots of the fir trees.

This was my first job, and in a sense, it is still my only job.

A governor is the top executive authority in his or her state. What does that mean do you?

Being the top authority in the state means personal leadership. It means getting my hands dirty and building something beautiful the hard way. That means physical dedication, discipline, and utmost commitment to my beliefs. That means the Earth and this corner of the Pacific Northwest will be left a better place than I found it. This means every single one of us will take responsibility for the change that we CAN make. Every single one of us will be a leader and example for the world to follow. We will accept the challenge of remaking the global mine pit into a life sustaining garden. I will lead with personal responsibility and commitment, and together we all will.

In most states, governors have the power to make line-item vetoes. If that is true in your state, what would be your philosophy for how and when to use this power?

I would use line item vetoes to put into action the policies I campaigned upon. If there is an issue on which I have expressed my public views and the people endorsed, then using a line item veto to enact that is the will of the people.

What do you love most about your state?

There is a resilience in Washington. We live and breathe the drizzling rain for more than half the year. But we run, we bike, we walk, we dance under them anyway. In the east, we can only hope for such rain, but we treasure the water of the vast Columbia, the beautiful rivers that spring from the Cascades, and the valleys and the fields. But none of it is given. Everything must be earned, and so it is a gracious resilience that emerges. We endure six months of darkness for the long leisurely cool late May evenings. We deeply appreciate the cold clear water of the Columbia in the dry Eastern Washington deserts. It is a resilience rooted in diversity and deprivation that gives a deep gratitude for all that we have, for every raindrop, every ocean wave, every mountain stream.

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.

Campaign finance summary

Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.

Chaytan Inman campaign contribution history
Year	Office	Status	Contributions	Expenditures
2024*	Governor of Washington	Lost primary	$4,783	$4,725
Grand total			$4,783	$4,725
Sources: OpenSecrets, Federal Elections Commission *This product uses the openFEC API but is not endorsed or certified by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
* Data from this year may not be complete

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Chaytan Inman

Contents

Elections

2024

General election

General election for Governor of Washington

Nonpartisan primary election

Nonpartisan primary for Governor of Washington

Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Campaign finance

Endorsements

Campaign themes

2024

Ballotpedia survey responses

Campaign finance summary

See also

External links

Footnotes

Information about voting

2025 Elections

2026 Elections

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