Welcome to The Newsfeed.

I'm Paris Jackson.

A new Cascade PBS podcast series examines Washington Governor Bob Ferguson's leadership so far.

The latest Northwest Reports series, called Ferguson Vs Everyone looks at his first term asking lawmakers and journalists about how they think he's doing.

Ferguson left lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and voters surprised and sometimes disappointed about the public servant they thought they knew.

Podcast host and producer Sara Bernard shares what struck her most about the governor in the series.

Since taking office, Governor Ferguson has not done what people have expected of him.

-He has defied a lot of expectations since the beginning of his term.

My colleague Laurel Demkovich, who had been reporting on state politics for years, started noticing this right from the beginning.

He's a Democratic governor, and I think a lot of people had expectations about what a Democratic governor would do or say.

And that inaugural address was was actually presenting a lot more right wing and conservative and Republican policy ideas.

And so that was the first surprise.

-Republicans stood up and clapped at Ferguson's address, more so than Democrats did, because he was talking about a lot of our ideas.

He wanted more money for police.

He wanted to get, you know, more houses built and get the government out of the way of the home building.

-And then throughout the legislative session this year, I think the governor also did not have as many conversations with the press as usual.

He did not have as many conversations with, advocacy groups as usual.

So there's a lot of confusion going on.

And I think a lot of what Laurel and I were exploring essentially, was why were these expectations there in the first place?

And a lot of that was because, Governor Bob Ferguson was our attorney general for, years before this and, and sort of presented not only a statewide but also a national persona about, being essentially an anti-Trump warrior, to quote one of the senators we spoke with.

He sued the Trump administration as attorney general almost 100 times in the end and created a national, persona around that.

I think people had expectations about who he would be as governor because of the way he behaved as attorney general.

And so there was a sort of expectation that maybe he would be some sort of far left Democratic politician.

And he's not that.

-Based on your conversations with lawmakers, Democrat and Republican, what was most surprising in regards to what they thought of who Governor Ferguson is now?

-By the end of the legislative session, the governor actually signed off on a lot of the Democratic, proposals.

And so there was another round of surprises, essentially because Republican lawmakers were perhaps unpleasantly surprised that he didn't sort of follow through with what they expected based on how the legislative session started out.

And Democrats were maybe a little relieved or surprised that he did, in fact, side with them a lot of their policy ideas.

A recent Cascade PBS poll found that Ferguson had the worst first six month approval rating of any governor in the last 30 years.

-This low rating, could be related to just the polarization of our state and our country right now.

In some ways, it's almost as if he was trying to walk the middle line, and in the end, everyone is disappointed.

It's Hispanic Heritage Month, and there's a new living gallery called MEXART 2025 that has transformed the campus parkway corridor in Seattle's University District.

Ten Mexican American artists, including Cristina Martinez, Esmeralda Vasquez, and Rene Julio painted the large murals as part of the MEXAM Northwest Festival.

This year's theme, a celebration of migration and belonging.

The open air art will be on display for the next two years.

I'm Paris Jackson, thank you for watching The Newsfeed, your destination for nonprofit Northwest news.

Go to CascadePBS.org for more great local coverage.