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.
Yes, Mrs. Englund will probably lose but don’t post this click-bait nonsense until she does. She hasn’t officially lost yet so until you’re prepared to call the race, don’t!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jenny, Manka has a ten point lead. She’s going to win, in all likelihood. If the race was close, then our take on the initial results would have been very different.
Nobody “officially” loses (or wins) until all the ballots are counted. Any characterization of the results before they become official is by nature a projection.
In publishing this post, we did call this contest for Manka: that’s why the headline reads “Manka Dhingra defeats Jinyoung Englund in 45th, Washington’s Senate flips Democratic.”