Over the course of the next few months, Sen­ate Repub­li­cans and their finan­cial back­ers will be spend­ing a for­tune des­per­ate­ly try­ing to save their major­i­ty by attempt­ing to whip up anti-tax fer­vor in Wash­ing­ton’s 45th Dis­trict, where they must win in Novem­ber or else be forced to hand over pow­er to the Democrats.

Sen­ate Repub­li­cans are gam­bling they can pre­vail in the spe­cial elec­tion with Jiny­oung Lee Englund, a thir­ty-two year old Repub­li­can oper­a­tive who only moved into the dis­trict a week pri­or to announc­ing her can­di­da­cy. Repub­li­cans have instruct­ed Englund to run hard against tax­es and posi­tion her­self as opposed to “Seat­tle style politi­cians” — what­ev­er that’s sup­posed to mean.

Englund has hewed to those instruc­tions in her social media post­ings and paid adver­tise­ments. But, in an appear­ance this week on Dori Mon­son’s show on KIRO, she was asked by her sym­pa­thet­ic host how she is going to respond when Democ­rats come after her as a sup­port­er of Don­ald Trump.

At first, Englund deflect­ed the ques­tion by declar­ing that the East­side is home to vot­ers who are inde­pen­dent thinkers, but when pressed by Dori Mon­son to respond (“How do you feel about the Pres­i­dent, since they’re going to try so might­i­ly to tie you to him?” Mon­son asked), she went off script and said:

JINYOUNG LEE ENGLUND: Yeah. Absolute­ly. Well, he is our pres­i­dent. And I don’t know if a lot of peo­ple know, but my hus­band, he’s an active duty Marine. And Pres­i­dent Trump is his Com­man­der in Chief. And I was always taught, you know, you respect your elders, and you respect the peo­ple who are in lead­er­ship. And I real­ly respect the way that Pres­i­dent Trump and his admin­is­tra­tion… they’re for a strong mil­i­tary, and they’re also for mil­i­tary families.

It’s hard to imag­ine these com­ments being received well in the 45th Dis­trict, which over­whelm­ing­ly vot­ed for Hillary Clin­ton last Novem­ber. The last thing most vot­ers around here want is a sen­a­tor who admires Don­ald Trump.

Englund could have respond­ed to Dori Mon­son’s ques­tion by say­ing she does­n’t like how Trump treats peo­ple of col­or, Mus­lims, or Amer­i­cans with disabilities.

She could have talked about how, as a woman, she finds Trump’s hor­rif­ic, degrad­ing views towards women offen­sive and repulsive.

She could have said she’s proud of Wash­ing­ton State for chal­leng­ing Trump’s many over­reach­es — like his uncon­sti­tu­tion­al exec­u­tive orders.

But she did­n’t say any of those things, because she is not the inde­pen­dent thinker she claims to be. She is a loy­al sol­dier for her par­ty, and like Susan Hutchi­son, she has ful­ly embraced Don­ald Trump and Don­ald Trump’s destruc­tive, tox­ic politics.

In the span of thir­ty sec­onds, she gave the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty exact­ly the sound bite that it was look­ing for. Now, at any point down the road, if any­one com­plains that Democ­rats are being unfair to Englund by try­ing to tie her to Trump, they can sim­ply play back the audio from this inter­view with Dori Monson.

It’s quite evi­dent from Englund’s answer that she has ful­ly accept­ed Trump as the leader of her par­ty and the leader of her coun­try, unlike the dis­trict she seeks to rep­re­sent. She has bought into the Trump mythos — she’s a true believer.

Again, it’s hard to imag­ine these com­ments being received well in the 45th.

The 45th has been con­sid­ered to be a swing dis­trict for many cycles, but it is now on the verge of becom­ing a Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict like its neigh­bor to the west (the 48th), where Repub­li­cans don’t even both­er to recruit can­di­dates for the Leg­is­la­ture any­more. Repub­li­cans know the 45th is chang­ing, demo­graph­i­cal­ly and polit­i­cal­ly, and that it could soon cease to be a dis­trict where they can win.

They are des­per­ate to cling to pow­er. And while win­ning is what mat­ters to them most, they’d pre­fer a suc­ces­sor to Rossi who is depend­able. Some­one who can be count­ed on to sup­ply a vote in any sit­u­a­tion. Some­one who will hap­pi­ly con­tin­ue the grand old East­side Repub­li­can tra­di­tion of enabling extremism.

They’ve bet the farm, so to speak, on Englund, a mil­len­ni­al can­di­date who is mak­ing her first run for office. Englund is a pro­tege of Dino Rossi, who served two terms in the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate from the neigh­bor­ing 5th Dis­trict pri­or to mak­ing three failed bids for statewide office (in 2004, 2008, and 2010).

In the last ten years, only one Repub­li­can can­di­date for the Leg­is­la­ture has won in the 45th: Andy Hill, who died last year and has been suc­ceed­ed by Rossi. Both of Hill’s win­ning cam­paigns came in years where Repub­li­cans enjoyed a nice tail­wind (2010 and 2014). They’re not going to have such a tail­wind this year.

And while Englund will not lack access to mon­ey (Rossi and Sen­ate Repub­li­cans will see to it that her cam­paign cof­fers are flush with cash), she does not have Andy Hill’s com­mu­ni­ty ties or roots in the dis­trict. Hill was a com­mit­ted parish­ioner of St. Jude Catholic Church in Red­mond and an active coach and par­ent in the Lake Wash­ing­ton Youth Soc­cer Asso­ci­a­tion. Englund is an unknown.

Englund’s lack of famil­iar­i­ty with the dis­trict was on dis­play ear­li­er in the inter­view with Mon­son, when she amus­ing­ly described her entry into the race as hav­ing been prompt­ed by Dino Rossi’s deci­sion “not to run again”.

Englund either does­n’t know or for­got that Rossi is only an appoint­ed sen­a­tor — vot­ers in the 45th nev­er sent him to Olympia to rep­re­sent them.

Rossi is in the Sen­ate because he was nom­i­nat­ed by the King Coun­ty Repub­li­can Cen­tral Com­mit­tee and appoint­ed by the King Coun­ty Coun­cil to rep­re­sent the 45th Dis­trict until an elec­tion could be held to fill the vacan­cy caused by Hill’s death.

Rossi has said from the out­set he would only serve as a care­tak­er and would not be a can­di­date in the spe­cial elec­tion this year.

Rossi got the nod over the two oth­er Repub­li­cans nom­i­nat­ed in part because of his Sen­ate “expe­ri­ence”. As not­ed, he rep­re­sent­ed the neigh­bor­ing 5th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict in the Sen­ate from 1997 until 2004, when he lived there.

Rossi vacat­ed his Sen­ate seat in 2004 to run for gov­er­nor… twice. After fail­ing to defeat Chris Gre­goire, he chal­lenged Pat­ty Mur­ray, and lost again.

Rossi briefly went back into the Sen­ate in 2012 as an appointee, tak­ing the place of his own suc­ces­sor Cheryl Pflug fol­low­ing her res­ig­na­tion five years ago.

Lat­er that year, vot­ers elect­ed Demo­c­rat Mark Mul­let as their next Sen­a­tor, and Mul­let has held the posi­tion ever since. Rossi is once again an appoint­ed Sen­a­tor owing to the trag­ic death of Andy Hill, only this time in a dif­fer­ent district.

In less than six months, Rossi could again find him­self mak­ing way for a ris­ing Demo­c­ra­t­ic star. If vot­ers in the 45th elect Man­ka Dhin­gra to be their next sen­a­tor,  and if vot­ers in the 48th send Pat­ty Kud­er­er back to the Sen­ate the East­side would have a quar­tet of Demo­cat­ic sen­a­tors for the first time in his­to­ry — and three of them would be women.

Vot­ers in the 41st last year opt­ed to dump Repub­li­can incum­bent Steve Lit­zow in favor of Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lenger Lisa Well­man, even though Lit­zow went to every extent pos­si­ble to paint him­self as an anti-Trump, rea­son­able Repub­li­can who gets along great with Democ­rats. Lit­zow spent enor­mous sums try­ing to hold his seat, and even cre­at­ed fly­ers imply­ing he was sup­port­ed by Demo­c­ra­t­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tives Judy Clib­born and Tana Senn. It did­n’t work. He went down to defeat.

Democ­rats have once again coa­lesced behind a promis­ing woman can­di­date in their quest for a Sen­ate major­i­ty, and Repub­li­cans have respond­ed by mak­ing a big, bold, bet on Jiny­oung Lee Englund. It’s hard to fath­om how Englund is going to suc­ceed where Lit­zow could­n’t, con­sid­er­ing she’s an avowed sup­port­er of Don­ald Trump and has no con­nec­tion to vot­ers in the 45th.