Can Jay Inslee talk a good game on the presidential trail?

It can be tough being governor in the upper left corner of America.

Reporter Austin Jenkins told Morning Edition host Angela King that Gov. Jay Inslee has a signature issue, but some big hurdles in running for president.

Austin Jenkins: He's calling this "America's Climate Mission." He's comparing it to trying to put a human on the moon. He's been talking about climate change for decades. He thinks that the issue is now ripe. Its polling is an important issue especially among Democratic primary voters. So he believes that he can make this issue central to a presidential campaign that can distinguish itself from all the other campaigns and all the other candidates.

Angela King: So what would you say are some of his biggest challenges?

Jenkins: One advantage is he's the first governor getting in the race, but he is up against much better known Democrats who have national bases of support, national donor bases. He's barely a blip on polls at this point. His ability to raise substantial sums of money is yet unproven.

King: He does have the support of a super PAC when it comes to climate change and those concerns.

Jenkins: That's going to help and there's an interesting story in The New York Times about the fact that governors in particular getting into this race may have a harder time getting this small dollar donors. We saw Bernie Sanders raise $10 million in a week. Inslee is not going to be able to do that. I would not be surprised if Tom Steyer, the California billionaire who's a climate activist who is not running for president, puts money into that super PAC already. Jay Inslee is pulling from Steyers’ staff into his campaign.

King: Now this is the first time in – what, four decades? — a prominent Washington political figure is getting into the race for president.

Jenkins: Henry “Scoop” Jackson, the U.S. senator, was the last big Washington name to run for president. I talked to Senator Jackson's son, Peter, who said that his father was actually very well-known and an early frontrunner in ‘76 because he had run before. He was a prominent U.S. senator, he was on “Meet the Press” I think more than anybody else at that time in that era. Jay Inslee is coming from a very different place, not as well known. For as big a state as Washington is these days and for as much as we're in the news because of the companies we have here, we're still thought of as sort of this corner of the country.

King: You've been following Inslee for quite some time — you were with him in New Hampshire, got to see him mingle with voters a bit. How do you think he did, and do you think that can translate to a bigger audience nationwide?

Jenkins: He likes retail politics. He walks into a roomful of students in New Hampshire and he is glad handing them and joking with them. There's a football player in one of the venues he spoke with, and he was saying, “I wish you'd been my wide receiver when I played, I would have loved to throw to you, I could've been in the NFL.” The youth that he talked to were quite impressed afterward, his affability and his seeming to be to them authentic. So I think that if he can get out on the stump and introduce himself to voters that will be an advantage. He does still have to run a state. He's got a full-time job.

King: And Republicans are already responding to his bid.

Jenkins: The state party is saying this is a vanity run and he should resign if he wants to pursue this. He's not going to resign. What we need to be watching for: Is there a point at which he says I think this is working or maybe it's time to bow out. And you know he has not ruled out a run for a third term as governor.