Brandi Kruse declines to run for U.S. Senate

(The Center Square) – KIRO radio host John Curley predicted that a frequent on-air guest of the station would represent Washington in the United States Senate in the future, besting Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Edmonds, in the 2024 elections.

He made the remark in response to an audience suggestion at this year’s Roanoke conference in Ocean Shores, Washington, which he was emceeing.

Curley talked about the legacy of fellow KIRO host Dori Monson, who unexpectedly died Dec. 31 of last year of a heart attack and how hard it was going to be to replace him.

Some members of the audience Friday night shouted “Brandi Kruse!”

“We can’t afford Brandi,” he replied.

Then he predicted she was going to be “elected senator” in two years.

Kruse is the host of the unDivided with Brandi Kruse podcast. Prior, she was a reporter for the television station KCPQ13, the local Fox affiliate, and a moderator for the 2020 Washington gubernatorial debate.

Before his passing, she was a frequent guest on Monson’s program and an occasional fill-in host on KIRO, prompting the audience suggestion.

Politically, Kruse describes herself as a centrist or a moderate who is against the extremes of both political parties. Her critics accuse Kruse of catering to a conservative audience and having right-wing or even extremist views.

Kruse rejects this framing.

“The fact that moderates are painted as extremists says so much about the state of politics, media, and discourse,” she said on Twitter Saturday.

She frequently highlights when Democrats agree with her and buck their own state party on issues. For instance, in discussing the ongoing struggle to reform Washington’s police pursuit law, she wrote the headline, “Data being used to justify strict police pursuit law ‘debunked’ by Seattle U professor; Democrat calls on her party to start using facts.”

With her podcast, Kruse is trying to change the “discourse” in Washington state. Might she try to do that on the campaign trail as well, as Curley suggested?

“I heard he said that,” Kruse told The Center Square in an email about the Kruse for Senate trial balloon.

However, she dismissed it as a prank.

“That is John Curley being John Curley,” she wrote. “100% made up. He always finds ways to embarrass me!”