Eager to reclaim the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate fol­low­ing the treach­ery of Rod­ney Tom and Tim Shel­don, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic grass­roots in Wash­ing­ton’s 45th Dis­trict vot­ed enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly yes­ter­day evening to endorse Man­ka Dhin­gra, an expe­ri­enced senior deputy pros­e­cut­ing attor­ney who has been mov­ing swift­ly to build a cam­paign focused on amply fund­ing edu­ca­tion and men­tal health.

The 45th, which is locat­ed in north­east­ern King Coun­ty, is among five dis­tricts that will hold spe­cial elec­tions for Sen­ate posi­tions this year; the oth­ers are the 48th, 31st, 37th, and the 7th. The 45th is present­ly rep­re­sent­ed in the Sen­ate by Repub­li­can Dino Rossi, but it is a dis­trict that increas­ing­ly votes for Democ­rats up and down the bal­lot, and the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty says it means to flip it this year.

A Demo­c­ra­t­ic vic­to­ry in the 45th would change the entire tra­jec­to­ry of the state almost overnight, because it would alter the bal­ance of pow­er in the state­house. Five years of divid­ed gov­ern­ment would be over, and the Sen­ate would cease to be a grave­yard for wor­thy pro­gres­sive leg­is­la­tion and an obsta­cle to sound budgeting.

Dhin­gra, forty-two, announced her can­di­da­cy in Feb­ru­ary (Demo­c­ra­t­ic State Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Lar­ry Springer and Roger Good­man opt­ed not to run for the Sen­ate) and has been fundrais­ing aggres­sive­ly ever since. She earned a strong rec­om­men­da­tion from the 45th Dis­trict Democ­rats’ Endorse­ments Com­mit­tee, which I had the plea­sure of chair­ing from 2008–2012 pri­or to my elec­tion to the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cen­tral Com­mit­tee (WSDCC).

The com­mit­tee inter­viewed two can­di­dates (Dhin­gra and Demo­c­ra­t­ic activist Ian Strat­ton) and con­clud­ed that Dhin­gra was far and away the best can­di­date. The dis­tric­t’s mem­ber­ship con­curred in that rec­om­men­da­tion this evening. With the dis­trict orga­ni­za­tion’s endorse­ment, Dhin­gra is now the par­ty’s stan­dard bearer.

Dhin­gra’s cam­paign has col­lect­ed $200,000+ in con­tri­bu­tions already, most­ly from indi­vid­u­als, and has secured an impres­sive list of endorse­ments. Dhin­gra has also pri­or­i­tized com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment in her cam­paign’s ear­ly days, attend­ing as many forums and pub­lic meet­ings as her sched­ule allows.

Mean­while, with the fil­ing peri­od a lit­tle over a month away, Repub­li­cans have yet to coa­lesce around a can­di­date of their own. Dino Rossi sought appoint­ment to the Sen­ate fol­low­ing Andy Hill’s death as a care­tak­er and has repeat­ed­ly stressed since then that he’s not run­ning. Even if he were to go back on his word, pub­lic opin­ion research sug­gests he’d be an under­dog candidate.

The team at Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling (who con­duct NPI’s reg­u­lar research polls) recent­ly sur­veyed the 45th and asked vot­ers about a hypo­thet­i­cal matchup between Dhin­gra and Rossi. Dhin­gra earned the sup­port of 46% of respon­dents, while only 40% backed Rossi. That’s a def­i­nite indi­ca­tion that Repub­li­cans face an uphill bat­tle in this spe­cial elec­tion, and are on the verge of los­ing their Sen­ate majority.

Northshore school board mem­ber Ken Smith has announced he’s mov­ing into the 45th from the 46th in order to run as a Repub­li­can, but he is launch­ing his can­di­da­cy with­out the back­ing of the Repub­li­can Party.

Two oth­er indi­vid­u­als have also filed paper­work with the Pub­lic Dis­clo­sure Com­mis­sion to run in the 45th Dis­trict for the Sen­ate: Strat­ton and inde­pen­dent Park­er Har­ris. Smith has yet to file his paperwork.

The fil­ing peri­od offi­cial­ly begins next month on May 15th and ends on May 19th.