Manka Dhingra defeats Jinyoung Lee Englund in 45th, Washington’s Senate flips Democratic

Vot­ers in Wash­ing­ton State’s 45th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict are deci­sive­ly back­ing Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­ate hope­ful Man­ka Dhin­gra in ear­ly Elec­tion Night returns, putting an end to five years of Repub­li­can con­trol of Wash­ing­ton’s Sen­ate and unit­ing the Left Coast under a tri­fec­ta of Demo­c­ra­t­ic-run statehouses.

As of just past 8 PM, Dhin­gra had 55.42% of the vote, with Englund trail­ing ten points behind at 44.58%. Many more bal­lots are left to count, but this will be an extreme­ly dif­fi­cult gap for the Repub­li­cans to overcome.

The Repub­li­can estab­lish­ment and its deep pock­et­ed cor­po­rate back­ers spent mil­lions of dol­lars to finance a series of adver­tis­ing onslaughts against Dhin­gra, des­per­ate­ly try­ing to smear her in a last ditch attempt to remain in power.

These results con­vinc­ing­ly demon­strate their efforts failed.

Dhin­gra will take over from Repub­li­can Dino Rossi upon the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of results. She is mak­ing his­to­ry tonight as the first Indi­an Amer­i­can woman to be elect­ed to the Leg­is­la­ture from the East­side… and is only the sec­ond Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date to win a Sen­ate race in the his­to­ry of the 45th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict after Eric Oemig.

9:30 PM UPDATE: It did­n’t take long for reac­tions to pour in.

“Tonight the Democ­rats have retak­en the major­i­ty in the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate with Man­ka Dhingra’s win in the 45th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict!,” said Wash­ing­ton State Sen­a­tor Sharon Nel­son, who will soon become the new Major­i­ty Leader.

“As MSNBC is say­ing, it is a big night for Democ­rats across the nation in a rejec­tion of Trump! Thank you to every­one who helped make this elec­tion a blue wave!”

“I send hearty con­grat­u­la­tions to Sen­a­tor-elect Man­ka Dhin­gra on her deci­sive win tonight,” said Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee. “It was a hard-fought race, and Manka’s bold ideas and pos­i­tive vision for the dis­trict res­onat­ed with voters.”

“We’ve had good bipar­ti­san suc­cess­es in Olympia over the past few years and that will con­tin­ue,” the Gov­er­nor added. “I also look for­ward to action on some issues that have stalled for too long. Man­ka is a smart, big-thinker who will bring her cre­ativ­i­ty and ener­gy to the leg­isla­tive process. She will rep­re­sent the 45th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict well, and I know she will be a breath of fresh air in Olympia.”

Englund weighed in on the ini­tial results on Twit­ter, writ­ing:

Want to say a big thank you to every­one who has sup­port­ed me these last 6.5 months. It’s been a long road with its ups & downs, but I am hum­bled & grate­ful for friends made & expe­ri­ences shared. There are still a lot of votes left to be count­ed, we will have an update tomorrow.

In August, Englund and Repub­li­can Par­ty oper­a­tives held out hope that late bal­lots would trend Repub­li­can, with King Coun­ty Repub­li­can Chair Lori Soete­lo even pre­dict­ing Englund would make up ground as the count­ing went on. But instead, Man­ka Dhin­gra widened her lead near­ly every time a new count was released.