Tina Podlodowski + Joe Pakootas elected to lead the Washington State Democratic Party

Change is in the air at the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party.

The par­ty’s cen­tral com­mit­tee (WSDCC) vot­ed deci­sive­ly today to set the par­ty on a new course by select­ing Tina Podod­lows­ki of Seat­tle and Joe Pakootas of Spokane to be the par­ty’s new Chair and Vice Chair for 2017–2018.

(Full dis­clo­sure: I am a vot­ing mem­ber of the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cen­tral Com­mit­tee and worked to elect Tina Pod­lodows­ki and Joe Pakootas).

Pod­lodows­ki, fifty-six, and Pakootas, fifty-nine, had cam­paigned togeth­er as a uni­ty tick­et (abbre­vi­at­ed as #Pod­Pak) for the par­ty’s top two offi­cer positions.

Each are busi­ness and civic lead­ers who answered the call to run for high­er office dur­ing the past cycle against Repub­li­can incum­bents (Pod­lodows­ki took on incum­bent Sec­re­tary of State Kim Wyman, while Pakootas chal­lenged incum­bent U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers).

Pod­lodows­ki sup­port­ed Hillary Clin­ton for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion for Pres­i­dent last year, while Pakootas sup­port­ed Bernie Sanders.

“Work­ing peo­ple face a dev­as­tat­ing eco­nom­ic threat from Don­ald Trump and his Repub­li­can allies in our state,” Tina and Joe wrote in their cam­paign mate­ri­als. “Our par­ty must stand up for them, rep­re­sent them, and include them. We can’t do that if we keep los­ing these crit­i­cal state and local elections.”

“We must change, and change requires lead­ing with our Demo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues, and find­ing new lead­er­ship in a new par­ty chair and vice chair to accom­plish it.”

Pod­lodows­ki and Pakootas’ weeks of out­reach paid off, as Pod­lodows­ki was elect­ed by a three-to-one mar­gin over the incum­bent Chair Jax­on Ravens, while Pakootas was elect­ed by accla­ma­tion, with no one else hav­ing been nominated.

Tina Pod­lodows­ki is the sec­ond woman and the first les­bian to become the Chair of the Wash­ing­ton State Democ­rats, while Joe Pakootas is the first Native Amer­i­can Vice Chair in the par­ty’s his­to­ry. Their terms began this after­noon fol­low­ing their elec­tions and will con­tin­ue until the par­ty next reor­ga­nizes until Jan­u­ary of 2019.