Suzan DelBene gets boost from EMILY’s List, DCCC; Roll Call now rates WA-01 “Leans D”

The last forty-eight hours have been pret­ty sweet for Suzan Del­Bene and her cam­paign team. The good news just keeps rolling in fol­low­ing her big win in this mon­th’s win­now­ing elec­tion, which end­ed Tuesday.

First, the DCCC has con­firmed that Del­Bene will receive pri­or­i­ty sup­port over the next three months as she bat­tles John Koster for the posi­tion of U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive from Wash­ing­ton’s 1st Con­gres­sion­al District.

Del­Bene will be part of the DCC­C’s “Red to Blue” effort (although the 1st Dis­trict has­n’t been held by a Repub­li­can since the 1990s, so it’s tech­ni­cal­ly not a dis­trict that would be going from red to blue).

“[On Tues­day], the vot­ers of the 1^st Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict said loud and clear they want a mem­ber of con­gress who will deliv­er results, not rhetoric. They want some­one who will stand up for the mid­dle class, get our econ­o­my back on track, pro­tect Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare,” said Del­Bene in a state­ment. “Being named to the Red-to-Blue pro­gram is anoth­er show of the grow­ing sup­port and momen­tum we’ve received as we move onto the gen­er­al election.””

Sec­ond, Del­Bene received a hefty and enthu­si­as­tic endorse­ment today from EMI­LY’s List, which only sup­ports pro-lib­er­ty Democ­rats for Congress.

“Suzan is an expe­ri­enced busi­ness leader and savvy entre­pre­neur who has used her sharp skills to help strug­gling fam­i­lies get back on their feet,” said Stephanie Schri­ock, Pres­i­dent of EMILY’s List.

“She’s a pro­gres­sive cham­pi­on who is com­mit­ted to pro­mot­ing clean ener­gy, expand­ing access to health­care and eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ty, and hold­ing Wall Street account­able. Wash­ing­ton fam­i­lies need lead­ers like Suzan to fend off Tea Par­ty extrem­ists, and EMILY’s List is proud to sup­port her candidacy.”

EMI­LY’s List had stayed neu­tral dur­ing the win­now­ing elec­tion to avoid burn­ing bridges with any of the can­di­dates. (Dar­cy Burn­er, Lau­ra Rud­er­man, Suzan Del­Bene are all strong, pro-lib­er­ty Demo­c­ra­t­ic women.) Now that the gen­er­al elec­tion matchup has been unof­fi­cial­ly set, the orga­ni­za­tion is free to endorse… and it has. In the last elec­tion cycle, EMI­LY’s List raised near­ly forty mil­lion dol­lars to help elect its can­di­dates in key races across the U.S.

Third, the race in WA-01 has now been rat­ed “Leans Demo­c­ra­t­ic” by Roll Call, one of the more wide­ly read jour­nals of D.C. politics. 

Roll Call offered this expla­na­tion for the upgrade:

DelBene’s vic­to­ry brings the best news for House Democ­rats. Even in the state’s most com­pet­i­tive House dis­trict, it will be dif­fi­cult for Sno­homish Coun­ty Coun­cil­man John Koster (R) to paint Del­Bene as too lib­er­al for the dis­trict. DelBene’s abil­i­ty to self-fund — she donat­ed $1.9 mil­lion to her cam­paign for the pri­ma­ry — in a pres­i­den­tial elec­tion cycle makes this an uphill climb for Koster.

Accord­ing­ly, Roll Call is chang­ing its race rat­ing for Washington’s 1st dis­trict from Tossup to Leans Demo­c­ra­t­ic.

Koster and his Repub­li­can friends were prob­a­bly already plan­ning to define whichev­er Demo­c­rat made it through the win­now­ing elec­tion as too lib­er­al for the dis­trict. That move is part of the clas­sic Repub­li­can play­book — they use it in pret­ty much every com­pet­i­tive dis­trict in the country.

The only places where they don’t use it are dis­tricts they’ve writ­ten off… and those locales get brand­ed as pop­u­lat­ed by cra­zies or whack­os (I’m not para­phras­ing; those are lit­er­al­ly labels the oth­er side dis­mis­sive­ly uses).

State Repub­li­can Par­ty Chair Con­cern troll Kir­by Wilbur, a for­mer con­ser­v­a­tive talk show host, had been hop­ing that Dar­cy Burn­er would be Koster’s gen­er­al elec­tion oppo­nent, fig­ur­ing that Repub­li­cans would be favored to pick up the seat if Burn­er (whose is more out­spo­ken than Del­Bene, but holds sim­i­lar views on the issues) end­ed up as the Demo­c­ra­t­ic standard-bearer.

Wilbur should be care­ful what he wish­es for.

In 2005, Repub­li­cans were glee­ful when it was announced that Howard Dean had been elect­ed chair of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee. Dean was prompt­ly mocked and derid­ed by Repub­li­can oper­a­tives and right-wing blogs. But Repub­li­cans weren’t laugh­ing on Elec­tion Night in Novem­ber of 2008, when Dean’s rein­vig­o­rat­ed DNC helped pro­pel Barack Oba­ma into the White House.

Del­Bene’s cam­paign says it’s all hands on deck and full speed ahead for the Novem­ber gen­er­al elec­tion. They’re already get­ting orga­nized so they can be pre­pared for the home stretch in Octo­ber… as is John Koster’s camp.