1st Legislative District

Rep. Suzan DelBene is running for re-election in the 1st Congressional District. DelBene is a former executive at Microsoft who has used her technology background to become a leader in protecting privacy rights against government surveillance. She was first elected in 2012 and has been an advocate for creating family-wage jobs in industries like aerospace, sustainable agriculture, and clean energy as well as advocating for reproductive justice. She also supports raising the federal minimum wage and passing comprehensive tax reform to ensure that corporations and the wealthy pay their share. This year, DelBene urged the Trump administration to send Washingtonians resources and use science to combat the coronavirus crisis and has pushed for relief for workers and small businesses.

DelBene is running against Republicans Derek Chartrand and Jeffrey Beeler, Sr., Libertarian Steven Skelton, Robert Dean Mair, Matthew Heines, and Justin Smoak. Chartrand considers himself a "Compassionate Capitalist" and wants to cut costs but has no other ideas for generating revenue. Beeler is a conservative running on a platform of term limits for elected officials and pushing our state to re-open unsafely in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. Skelton is a consultant who believes that Democrats and Republicans "agree on just about everything that matters" and is not qualified for Congress. Heines ran for state Senate in 2018 as a New Republican. Mair has no policy ideas available as of mid-July and Smoak is running to quickly re-open the state in light of the "sensationalism" of COVID.

Rep. DelBene is the clear choice in this race and deserves your vote for her re-election.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal is running for re-election in the 7th Congressional District. She has a long history of civic leadership on immigration reform, economic justice, and civil liberties. Rep. Jayapal founded OneAmerica (formerly Hate Free Zone) in 2001 and built it into the largest immigrant rights organization in the state and a national model. She also played a key role on the Mayoral Advisory Committee that created Seattle’s $15 minimum wage.

Since her election to Congress in 2016, Rep. Jayapal has resisted the Trump administration at every turn and provided a voice for progressives across the country. She has supported the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and the Dream Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for young DACA recipients. She has also fought back against the Trump administration's inhumane policy of separating families seeking asylum, and introduced legislation that paves a pathway towards a universal health care system. This year, Rep. Jayapal introduced legislation to expand collective bargaining and provide relief to workers and businesses during the coronavirus pandemic. She has held nearly 100 town halls during her time in Congress and is the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Also in this race are Democrat Jack Hughes-Hageman, Independent Rick Lewis, and Republicans Scott Sutherland and Craig Keller. Hughes-Hageman wants to repeal federal marijuana prohibition with universal amnesty and seems to be very progressive but does not have any elected experience. Independent Lewis has a background in military intelligence and says he has the resume of a "highly competent James Bond villain." He is not a serious candidate. Sutherland's platform includes promoting renewable energy and proposing a constitutional amendment requiring all members of Congress to handwrite all proposed laws. Keller claims legislators have "lavished" billions of dollars "upon illegal aliens and their profiteer employers." He is neither progressive nor qualified for Congress.

Jayapal has been an outstanding progressive leader for the 7th Congressional District and the entire country. She has earned your vote for re-election.

Rep. Kim Schrier was elected to represent Washington's 8th Congressional District in 2018. Schrier serves on the Education & Labor and Agriculture Committees and prioritized gun violence prevention, health care (including reducing the cost of prescription drugs), and reproductive justice in her first term. Prior to running for office, she worked as a pediatrician in Issaquah for two decades. She is the first Democrat to hold this seat.

Rep. Schrier's strong re-election platform includes encouraging sustainable agriculture, addressing the climate crisis, safeguarding our elections, and protecting endangered species and lands. She is the only woman doctor in Congress and her perspective is incredibly valuable, especially during this unprecedented pandemic. Schrier held more than 50 town halls in her first term and is endorsed by numerous progressive partner organizations and Democratic elected officials.

Also in this race are Democrats James Mitchell and Keith Arnold, Independent Corey Bailey, Republicans Jesse Jensen and Keith Swank, Trump Republican Dave Saulibio, and Ryan Dean Burkett, who states he has no party preference. Mitchell is an anti-choice Democrat who describes himself as "old school" and believes vaccines are dangerous. Arnold is a perennial anti-choice candidate who has been on the ballot in every election since 2008. Bailey wants to prioritize re-opening Washington state, which public health experts agree is not safe.

Jensen is a manager at Amazon and a former Army captain who was recruited by Republicans to run in this district. He claims he will protect coverage for people with pre-existing conditions and lower the cost of health care but doesn't offer any substantial policy ideas. Swank is a police officer and commander of the Metro Special Response Section who wants to make the Trump tax cuts that benefited big corporations permanent. Saulibio also ran for Congress in 2018 and pledges to support all legislative actions that support Trump. Burkett is running to institute term limits and move the U.S. to the metric system. He is not a serious candidate. 

Rep. Schrier is the clear choice in this race and deserves your vote.

Governor Jay Inslee has been a strong, principled leader on the important challenges facing Washington. Before he was elected as governor in 2012, Inslee represented both sides of the Cascades in Congress, opposed the Iraq war, and worked to increase accountability and oversight for Wall Street banks.

Inslee has established himself as a national leader on fighting climate change. He has invested more than $170 million into clean energy and energy efficiency projects, implemented the Clean Air Rule, and pushed for legislation that reduces pollution in Washington. In his 2020 bid for the presidency, Inslee brought a climate-centered focus to the race. Outside of his work on climate, Inslee has signed into law Washington's public option for health care, paid family leave, and the Equal Pay Opportunity Act.

Recently, Inslee has been a national leader in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. His proactive, decisive, science-driven efforts have saved countless Washingtonians from getting sick. Unfortunately, we've seen the flip side recently where states with governors who were slow or failed to act have seen dramatic increases in cases.

Inslee is facing 35 opponents this year, the most prominent of which are Republicans Sen. Phil Fortunato, Tim Eyman, and Bothell Mayor Joshua Freed. Fortunato is a social conservative who has abandoned working families while in the office. In past legislative sessions, he voted against protections for LGBTQ school children and against expanding access to reproductive health care for women. Freed believes we should be less cautious about COVID-19 protections and rapidly re-open the state, a faulty strategy in the face of death and difficult recoveries even for previously healthy coronavirus patients.

Eyman is one of the worst candidates for governor the state has ever seen. Eyman's legal problems range from fraudulently diverting funds from his ill-conceived initiatives into his personal bank accounts to wide-ranging campaign finance violations to stealing a chair from Office Depot. He is the face behind many of Washington's most damaging initiatives, including the most recent disaster that has cut tens of billions of dollars from state transportation projects. Eyman has lately been doubling down on his cringeworthy antics by comparing Gov. Inslee's COVID policies to George Floyd's murder.

As the coronavirus crisis continues and the gap in the state budget persists, we need real, experienced leadership at the helm of the state. Inslee is the clear choice for governor.

Former port commissioner and progressive state Rep. Gael Tarleton is now running for Secretary of State, who serves as the state's chief elections officer, among other roles. First elected to the Legislature in 2012, Tarleton has been a strong advocate for environmental causes such as Governor Jay Inslee's initiative to reduce carbon pollution. She sponsored bills during her first term in the House to strengthen the maritime industry, improve access to health care, and ensure gender pay equity.

Tarleton is running for Secretary of State to expand access to voting in Washington while safeguarding our elections against attacks "foreign and domestic." She wants to improve digital security and increase funding for county auditors to safeguard local elections from hacking attempts in the wake of the 2016 election. She would also expand audits of the state and local systems to identify any weaknesses that could be exploited.

Tarleton is challenging incumbent Republican Secretary of State Kim Wyman, who has faced a bumpy road during her time in office. Last year, Wyman's office released a new $9.5 million voter registration database that was riddled with errors and led to a backlog of tens of thousands of registrations. King County elections director Julie Wise described the release as "irresponsible" and "not even functioning." In addition, Wyman was slow to support the Washington Voting Rights Act, same-day voter registration, and postage-paid ballots, and she has failed to condemn the president's relentless attacks on voting by mail.

Also in this race are Independent Ed Minger and Progressive Party candidate Gentry Lange. Minger wants to prohibit candidates from running paid ads, which is blatantly unconstitutional, and Lange wants to end voting by mail in Washington, a particularly confounding position during a pandemic.

We need a progressive leader in the Secretary of State's office who is fully committed to protecting our elections and removing every barrier to participation in our democracy. Tarleton is the clear progressive choice in this race.

Mike Pellicciotti has served in the Washington state House representing the 30th Legislative District since 2016 and is now running for Treasurer. Pellicciotti has never accepted corporate campaign donations and has led efforts to make the Legislature's records open for public view. He also wrote the Corporate Crime Act, which increases financial penalties for corporate crimes by 100 times, and has successfully supported laws reducing property taxes.

Pellicciotti is challenging incumbent Republican Duane Davidson. In 2016, incumbent Jim McIntire retired, leaving the seat open. Because of the crowded primary, two Republicans made it through to the general election, giving them control of the Treasurer's office for the first time since 1957. Davidson previously served as the Benton County Treasurer from 2003 to 2016. In his term, he has been a traditional Republican and has referred to the state Legislature "raiding" the Rainy Day Fund. He has also only attended 3 of 18 critical pension meetings since fall 2017.

Pellicciotti has been a solid legislator and is the best choice in the race for Washington State Treasurer.

Washington Auditor Pat McCarthy has been a consistent advocate for government transparency and accountability during her first term in office. Previously, she served as Pierce County Executive and Pierce County Auditor, where she was honored as the 2006 Washington State Auditor of the Year.

Recently, McCarthy announced that her office has opened two independent audits of the Employment Security Department. The first will investigate the delay in unemployment benefits for hundreds of thousands of Washingtonians who lost their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic. The second audit will look into how criminals stole hundreds of millions of dollars through a sophisticated fraud scheme.

McCarthy is facing a challenge from Democrat Joshua Casey and Republican Chris Leyba. Casey is a CPA who wants to bring his financial expertise to the auditor's office. Leyba is a former police detective who currently runs an animal rescue on his farm. If elected, he would prioritize buying from Washington businesses and saving taxpayer dollars.

McCarthy's experience and commitment to oversight will be valuable as the state works to emerge from the pandemic and the recession. McCarthy is the best choice in this race.

Attorney General Bob Ferguson's accomplishments during his two terms in office are impressive. From delivering millions of dollars back to consumers who were wronged by fraudulent corporations and his ongoing battle with the federal government to clean up the Hanford nuclear waste site to successfully fighting two Tim Eyman initiatives, Ferguson has been a strong and effective advocate for people in Washington. He has sued the Trump administration 50 times as of October 2019 and won every completed case (22 by his own count). Some of Ferguson's biggest accomplishments from the past few years include protecting consumer medical data, protecting statewide water quality from Trump's erosive environmental policies, and fighting back against the Trump administration's child detention laws.

Ferguson is running against Republicans Brett Rogers, Mike Vaska, and Matt Larkin. Rogers states that with over 20 years of law enforcement experience, including time with the Seattle Police Department, he would be well-suited to research and set criminal justice policy. A member of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, Vaska's priorities include reducing regulations for business and streamlining the permitting process. Larkin states that he's running to prioritize "the homeless situation" that "no one is doing anything about," and promises to empower law enforcement while making Washington more business-friendly.

Ferguson is the clear progressive choice for Attorney General of Washington.

Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz has been a proactive force for protecting our communities from climate change. As the head of the Washington Department of Natural Resources, she has focused on wildfire management and climate action.

This year, Franz released a climate resilience plan for rural Washington that includes expanding wind and solar farms and massive reforestation. Given the statewide threat and impact of wildfires with recent record-setting fire seasons, she has also worked on a 20-year forest health plan and a 10-year fire protection plan.

Franz is running against six other candidates: Republicans Cameron Whitney, Steve Sharon, Maryam Abasbarzy, and Sue Kuehl Pederson, Democrat Frank Wallbrown, and Libertarian Kelsey Reyes. Wallbrown and Abasbarzy have no campaign details available. Pederson is the former chair of the Grays Harbor Republican Party and says she's running to bring new leadership to the office and to balance the state's economy and ecology. Reyes works in the restaurant industry and has no concrete campaign details or website available. Finally, Sharon is running to investigate the effects of 5G towers and Whitney is running to follow Trump's suggestion of raking forests to stop forest fires.

Franz has the experience we need to guide and protect our state from increasingly dangerous fire seasons to the rising threat of climate inaction. Vote Franz for Commissioner of Public Lands.

Chris Reykdal is running for re-election to the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to continue his leadership of our state's public schools through this challenging time. Previously, Reykdal spent 14 years serving on local school boards and in leadership positions at community and technical colleges, as well as serving 6 years in the Legislature. In the state House, Reykdal had a strong progressive voting record and was a consistent champion for public schools.

In his first term as Superintendent, Reykdal has pushed the Legislature to fully fund K-12 education, increase teacher pay, and close the opportunity gap for students of color. More recently, Reykdal has worked closely with Gov. Inslee to help Washington's schools navigate the pandemic. He made the tough decision early to close schools for the year to keep kids and families safe and slow the spread of COVID-19. If re-elected, Reykdal will continue to advocate for these priorities and work with schools across the state as they make the transition back to in-person education.

Reykdal is facing a handful of opponents in this non-partisan race: conservative Ron Higgins, former Republican legislative candidate Maia Espinoza, Dennis Wick, Stan Lippman, and David Spring. Espinoza has garnered attention by publishing a false and inflammatory voters pamphlet statement attacking Reykdal. Lippman is a disbarred lawyer and anti-vaccination advocate, Spring doesn't think we should have closed schools during the pandemic, and Higgins wants to inject religious teachings into public education. Wick is a former member of the Snohomish School District Board of Directors who wants to modernize our school system.

Reykdal is the clear choice for Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler has spent his entire career serving the people of Washington. Prior to running for statewide office, Kreidler was a doctor of optometry, state legislator, and member of Congress.

As Insurance Commissioner, Kreidler has been a consistent advocate for consumers and patients in overseeing insurance companies in Washington. Kreidler set up one of the first and most effective Obamacare exchanges in the country, helping expand access to health care for hundreds of thousands of Washingtonians. More recently, Kreidler moved quickly to issue an emergency order requiring insurance companies to waive copays, coinsurance, and deductibles for COVID-19 testing and office visits. In addition, he forced insurance companies to allow consumers to access other health providers if they did not have an in-network option for testing.

Kreidler is running against Republican Chirayu Avinash Patel and Libertarian Anthony Welti. Patel wants to model the office of the insurance commissioner based on a hybrid of the Ronald Reagan and Thomas Jefferson administrations, though he gives few details on what this would mean. Welti is running on a vaguely anti-corruption platform and wants to allow insurance companies to offer cheaper plans with fewer protections for consumers.

Kreidler has earned your vote for re-election to the Office of the Insurance Commissioner.

Derek Stanford served nearly 10 years as a state representative before earning an appointment to the state Senate to replace Guy Palumbo. Throughout his tenure in the Legislature, Rep. Stanford has been a strong proponent of LGBTQ rights, consumer protections, environmental sustainability, and strengthening access to higher education in Washington state. Most recently, Rep. Stanford sponsored legislation that prohibits state agencies from creating databases based on an individual's religious affiliation. Stanford was the prime sponsor of the Kuhnhausen Act, named after a transgender teen who was killed in Vancouver this year. The law prevents the use of the "panic" defense if someone commits a crime after learning of a victim’s actual or perceived gender identity.

Stanford is running against Dr. Art Coday, who previously ran for U.S. Senate in 2012 and 2018. In 2018, Cody's top priority was to completely repeal the Affordable Care Act and leave tens of millions of Americans without health insurance and at the whims of a few private insurance companies. His campaign also strenuously opposed any gun safety legislation and was anti-abortion.

Stanford is by far the best choice in this race.

Rep. Davina Duerr is running to retain her seat in the 1st Legislative District. Appointed to the Legislature in the summer of 2019 to replace Derek Stanford, Davina Duerr is a former Bothell City Council member and deputy mayor.

Duerr has long been a strong regional advocate for improved transit and protecting parks and forested land. If re-elected, she would continue her work advocating for transit and climate action in the House. Her other priorities include improving public education with greater equity between districts, increasing the number of pre-K programs, bridge and road repair, funding gun violence research, and reducing the impact of the coronavirus.

She is running against Republican Adam Bartholomew, whose platform is very conservative. He does not support commonsense, age-appropriate sex education and is not open to finding new sources of revenue. Duerr is the clear choice in this race.

Rep. Shelley Kloba is running for re-election for the 1st Legislative District, House Position 1. Prior to joining the Legislature, Rep. Kloba served her community as a trustee for the Lake Washington Schools Foundation, as a Kirkland City Councilmember, and as the Washington State PTA Legislative Director for two years.

In the Legislature, Kloba has extended her knowledge of education policy to become an advocate for Washington's youth. In 2018, Rep. Kloba was the primary sponsor of a bill that extended the Expanded Learning Opportunities Council, which increases opportunities for students from low-income backgrounds. This year, she expanded workers' rights by sponsoring legislation that would prevent a positive marijuana test for disqualifying people from most jobs, excluding positions like firefighters and federal workers.

Her challengers are Republicans Jeb Brewer and Gary Morgan. Brewer is running on a conservative platform and wants to prioritize issues including traffic and homelessness. He believes the government should better support businesses but doesn't mention supporting people. Morgan's website is inactive. He does not have a detailed platform but opposes a statewide income tax.

Kloba has been a strong advocate for her constituents and deserves another term in the House.

Jared Mead was appointed to the Snohomish County Council from District 4 in April to replace Terry Ryan, who stepped down. Prior to his appointment, Mead was elected to the state House in 2018 and also served on the Mill Creek City Council. As a legislator, Mead was an environmental champion who sponsored two bills to improve recycling, particularly for electronics that can contain hazardous chemicals. 

On the Snohomish County Council, Mead is focused on improving transportation and supporting smart growth policies that keep housing affordable and protect the environment. In addition, he wants to use his role as chair of the Law & Justice and Human Services Committee to rethink policing and make sure everyone feels safe.

Mead is facing challenges from Democrat Amber King, Republican Brenda Carrington, and Independent Delia O'Malley. King is a Democratic Party activist who is running on a platform of making health care a human right, expanding affordable housing, and fully funding education. Carrington has a background in business but does not have a website or detailed campaign platform available. O'Malley works in the foster care system and wants to expand broadband access across the country to help everyone recover from the pandemic.

Mead is the clear choice for Snohomish County Council in District 4.