Danny Wesneat has a column in the Seattle Times in which he claims the left in Washington State, unlike other parts of the country like Michigan or New York, “fizzled” because only four of the 22 insurgent progressives challenging Democratic incumbents or centrists for the state legislature are on track to possibly win their races following the August primary.
He points to the 43rd Legislative District where Senate Majority Leader Jaime Pedersen was facing a challenge from his left from labor organizer Hannah Sabio-Howell (full disclosure: my wife) and is ahead by more than 40 points as a key example.
But Westneat misses a few important things.
First, he doesn’t acknowledge that in politics nothing moves if people don’t push. And every one of these contests pushed the incumbents to the left. Pedersen didn’t campaign on the tax cuts for the wealthy and major corporations that he advanced this past session; instead he and his establishment allies outspent Sabio-Howell five to one, painting him as the most progressive Senate Majority Leader in Washington State history who passed taxes on the rich like the millionaires tax and capital gains tax. In other words, Pedersen ran toward Sabio-Howell’s positions, not the other way around.
That same dynamic played out in the 46th LD where Representative Gerry Pollet was being challenged by progressive urbanist Ron Davis and J6 prosecutor Will Dreher. If you go to Pollet’s re-election website you’ll find him touting all the ways he plans to “stand up” to the Trump administration as well as his support for rent control and transit-oriented development.
Davis and Dreher may be trailing Pollet in votes in the primary, but they led him toward positions on taking on the Trump administration and urbanist priorities like housing that Pollet had previously been an obstacle on.
This is all in stark contrast to the days when the corporate-friendly, centrist “Roadkill Caucus” so-called because, like roadkill, they were “middle of the road” on most issues, were in the driver's seat of the state legislature. These were Democrats like Reuven Carlyle, who’s since been replaced by tax-the-rich champion Noel Frame, and multi-millionaire banker Mark Mullet, who’s since been replaced by the more progressive State Senator Victoria Hunt.
Today, progressive challengers, at least in state legislative contests, are raising an important question: in a democratic trifecta state as wealthy as ours, can’t we do better? Can’t we strive to have the kind of urbanist multiracial social democracy that would be the envy of other states and a model for the rest of the country?
Across many Democrat-on-Democrat races for state legislature in this primary, progressive challengers ran on making it easier to build abundant housing, establishing universal childcare and universal healthcare, and not stopping with the millionaires tax when it comes to fixing our upside down tax code. More importantly, the centrists they were challenging followed their messaging, and as a result the whole political landscape has shifted to the left.
In fact, because all these progressives picked fights with the establishment this primary, we are almost certainly going to have the most progressive state legislature in history if trends hold for the general.
Kelabe Tewolde in the 37th LD is currently leading centrist incumbent Sharon Tomiko Santos. State Rep. Cindy Ryu in the 32nd is leading her centrist seatmate, Senator Jesse Solomon by more than five points. In the 48th LD, progressive Redmond City Councilmember Jessica Forsythe is less than a point behind former corporate executive and incumbent Rep. Amy Walen.
Moreover, the legislature is about to add its second democratic socialist in Jaelynn Scott from the 37th LD.
So even if they might lose some races here and there, what’s clear is, by picking these fights, progressives are slowly but surely winning the future of the Democratic Party and the future of Washington state.
Doug Trumm
