Let’s Go Washington breaks week-one signature record for income tax repeal initiative

Petitions for an initiative aimed at repealing Washington state's new income tax measure. — Petitions for an initiative aimed at repealing Washington state’s new income tax measure. Photo courtesy Hallie Balch/Let’s Go Washington

🎧 Income Tax Repeal Drive Breaks Week-One Signature Record

Qualifying an initiative for the ballot requires far more signatures than a referendum, but LGW officials are confident they will succeed in getting the measure qualified

Carleen Johnson
The Center Square Washington

One week into the signature gathering campaign, more than 92,000 Washington voters have signed petitions for an initiative aimed at repealing the new income tax.

“There has been record breaking support for repealing the income tax with IP26-645,” wrote Hallie Balch with Let’s Go Washington in a Wednesday morning message to The Center Square.

“We’ve gathered 92,000 signatures in the first week which is almost 30,000 more than we see at this time in an average initiative campaign. That tells us two things: people are motivated to repeal this unconstitutional tax, and they’re fed up with Olympia keeping them out of the conversation.”

Governor Bob Ferguson signed SB 6346 at the end of the 2026 legislative session. Starting in 2028, income above $1 million or combined household income above that threshold will be taxed at 9.9%.

Ferguson posted on X Wednesday morning in reference to the support the initiative has received so far.

“It looks like voters will get a say on whether to maintain the tax on income over $1 million that was passed earlier this year – and I look forward to the public having their say on this important policy,” the post reads.

“To be clear, this reform of our regressive tax code included expansion of tax credits for working families, relief for small businesses, and investments in K-12 and affordable childcare.”

“One more thing voters should know: so long as I am Governor I will veto ANY attempt to lower the threshold or raise the rate of this tax– we are asking those who make the most to pay a little more, and providing relief to workers and small businesses. Let’s keep it that way,” the post concluded.

In a Tuesday evening post on X, LGW Founder Brian Heywood posted “Our first week of gathering signatures has blown us away — no one believes Olympia — they know this income tax is coming for them.”

Heywood posted some other numbers:

92,780: Actual number of signatures in first week

308,911: The official number needed to qualify the initiative for the November ballot

380,000: The number recommended to turn in due to duplicates, mistakes, non-registered voters, etc.

400,000: The minimum target to be safe to secure certification

700,000 – The number needed to break the state record for most signatures turned in

June 28 is the deadline for people to turn in signature sheets, with July 2 being the official deadline for LGW to hand over petitions to the Secretary of State.

Heywood noted that in the first week gathering signatures for I-2066, the initiative to protect natural gas as an energy source, backers collected about 65,000 voter signatures.

That means backers of IP26-645 gathered 27,000 more signatures than the previous record weekly sign-in numbers set by I-2066.

In 1973, 699,098 Washington voters signed Initiative 282 to restrict salary increases for state elected officials and judges. It passed overwhelmingly with over 80% of the vote.

LGW attempted to repeal the income tax by referendum, but Secretary of State Steve Hobbs rejected the effort because majority Democrats attached a “necessity clause” to SB 6346, precluding a public vote via referendum.

Qualifying an initiative for the ballot requires far more signatures than a referendum, but LGW is confident they will succeed in getting the measure qualified.

LGW has signing events planned across the state in the coming weeks.

This report was first published by The Center Square Washington.