This November, there’s only one open county sheriff’s race on the ballot in Washington. It’s in Pierce County where two candidates are running to replace current Sheriff Ed Troyer. Troyer opted not to seek re-election after just one term.
It’s shaping up to be a tight race between sheriff’s department lifer Patti Jackson and outsider Keith Swank. Swank garnered the most votes in the primary election, beating Jackson by just over 1,200 votes. Both have raised over $100,000.
Jackson has been with the Sheriff’s Department since 1989, mostly working in corrections and administrative roles. She’s campaigning as the pragmatic candidate focused on policy and collaboration.
“Public safety isn't just about reducing crime, it is about addressing the root causes,” she said during a candidate forum in Key Peninsula. “It is about ensuring that we have some systems that are in place, some strategies to fight mental health, to fight addiction and to fight the homelessness that we're seeing. We cannot police our way out of this, but we can work together to create a safer, healthier community.”
Jackson is currently the Chief of Patrol at the sheriff’s department. This is her first run for office and if elected she’d be the first woman to hold the position.
Earlier this year she received a vote of no confidence from corrections staff. But the corrections guild said ultimately they didn’t want her to resign, just to address their concerns. Jackson’s campaign did not make her available for an interview for this story.
As sheriff, she said at the forum she will be tough on crime, and prioritize transparency at the agency.
“We will tell you what we're doing and why.”
Swank is an army veteran who spent 33 years in the Seattle Police Department before retiring last year. This is the fourth run for public office by the Puyallup resident. He said he would be tough on crime, too.
“We need to make sure that our communities are safe, and we do that by holding people accountable,” Swank said during the forum. “We put them in jail, we hold them there. We’ll deal with the staffing issues to make sure that we have the violent people off the streets and in the jail where they belong.”
While in Seattle, he received a 10-day suspension in 2010 for failure to supervise a detective who used a racialized threat at a scene. Swank told KNKX in an interview that he removed the detective from the scene and reported the incident to his boss. He said it was his boss who failed by not reporting the incident to internal affairs. Swank said he would implement a stronger policy of accountability at the Pierce County Sheriff’s department.
“We want everybody to be held accountable at all ranks, not just the deputies, the whole way up to the sheriff.”
Swank has also been criticized for making social media posts considered racist, transphobic, or as spreading conspiracy theories about January 6th insurrectionists. He told KNKX in an interview he stands by those posts and his right to express himself under the First Amendment.
“There are going to be people who disagree with me about things, and I support their First Amendment rights to say that whatever it is that I said, or I did, was wrong if they feel that way, too,” he said.
Unlike Jackson who has been with the sheriff’s department for decades, Swank is presenting himself as the change candidate - an outsider, who believes a new perspective is needed at the top of the department.
“The current leadership at this Pierce County Sheriff's Office is failing the deputies in the corrections office and the deputies on the street,” Swank said. “We will put the right people in the right places and that will improve morale immediately.”
Current Sheriff Ed Troyer’s decision not to run for reelection, blew the race wide open. He said he’s ready to retire after nearly 40 years at the department, but his only term as sheriff was also tumultuous.
He was prosecuted in 2022 on false reporting charges after he called 911 on a newspaper carrier whom he claimed threatened to kill him, and he was placed on the so-called Brady List which formally casts doubt on his credibility as an officer. He faced rumblings of recall effort and questions about how he could be removed from his position. He often picked fights with state Attorney General Bob Ferguson and Governor Jay Inslee on social media and in interviews. And he used inflammatory rhetoric against his political enemies or people he viewed as being against law enforcement.
Now, Troyer is endorsing his longtime colleague, Jackson, to take over from him.
“Most everybody that elected me wanted me to run again, and I understand I had 500 write-ins” he told KNKX at a Jackson fundraising event. “And I'm telling all those people ‘Don't do that. Vote for Patti.’”
The Pierce County Auditor’s Office couldn’t confirm exactly how many write-ins, if any, Troyer received.
While Swank has been endorsed by the Pierce County Republicans and earned contributions from other local Republican clubs. Jackson has the endorsements of just about everyone else, including Democratic State Senator Yasmin Trudeau, who represents parts of Tacoma and Fife.
“People would often think like I'm lefty, Trudeau, right? Troublemaker Trudeau,” Trudeau said.
Trudeau is an outspoken advocate for police reform and was the lead sponsor of the bill that banned police from hogtying people. She is pretty politically opposed to Troyer, but in this race they’ve ended up on common ground, endorsing the same candidate.
“Does it make me pause a little bit when I hear that? Yes, it does” she said. “But I feel that my endorsement was rooted in something that I think Patti can bring to the institution, and that's why I chose to endorse her.”
Jackson has been endorsed by a surprisingly diverse mix of people including Republican candidate for governor Dave Reichert, Republican Pierce County Executive Bruce Dammeier, and Democratic House Speaker Laurie Jinkins. Trudeau said that just might be a sign of fatigue from the last four years of political polarization.
“I think there is a unified desire that we need to build up public trust,” she said. “I think we're all ready for that in a way that is not so hyper-political. I think there’s more of us that are just like ‘can we just move forward?”
The Pierce County sheriff’s department has systemic issues the new sheriff will have to reckon with, too. Including studies showing sheriff’s deputies use force against Black people at more than five times the rate they do against white residents.
In order to move forward, Swank said he has the benefit of a blank slate.
“I’m a new person with new ideas, who hasn’t been there,” Swank said in an interview with the Tacoma News Tribune editorial board. “I don’t have that negative relationship with them as the agency has right now. So one of the things I would do is go out to the communities, and meet with them.”
Jackson told the board she would rebuild trust in the community through teamwork.
“It's not just what the sheriff is saying, it’s holding the entire agency accountable to what the community deserves,” Jackson said. “It is not one person going out and speaking, it is all of us speaking together.”
Jackson said with this race, residents are standing at the threshold of a new era for Pierce County.
What that new era looks like will be determined by the voters on election day.
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