NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate provides the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Tuesday, August 7th, 2018

Patty Kuderer, My-Linh Thai roll to victory in the 48th and 41st Legislative Districts

There were shouts of joy and sighs of relief as the ini­tial vote counts were released in Wash­ing­ton’s August Top Two elec­tion tonight and Demo­c­ra­t­ic activists from the 41st and 48th Dis­tricts saw that their can­di­dates were all in first place.

Pat­ty Kud­er­er, up for reelec­tion to the Sen­ate in the 48th Dis­trict, was fac­ing a chal­lenge from Demo­c­rat-turned-Repub­li­can-turned-Demo­c­rat Rod­ney Tom, but is crush­ing Tom in the ear­ly results. Kud­er­er cur­rent­ly has 10,930 votes, while Tom only has 5,501, giv­ing Kud­er­er 59.26% of the vote to Tom’s 29.82%.

Repub­li­can Bill Hirt (who is run­ning as an inde­pen­dent) was the low­est vote-get­ter with 10.92% and will not advance to the gen­er­al elec­tion on November.

After the thrilling announce­ment of Kud­er­er’s results, My-Linh Thai, the 41st Dis­trict Democ­rats’ choice to suc­ceed Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Judy Clib­born for Posi­tion #2, heard that she was also win­ning her race, with 41.63% of the vote. She leads Repub­li­can Michael Apple­by, who is cur­rent­ly has 33%, by over 2,100 votes and Wendy Weilk­er, a fel­low Demo­c­ra­t­ic con­tender, by near­ly 4,000 votes.

Tana Senn is run­ning for reelec­tion to House Posi­tion #1 in the 41st and ear­ly in the night said she was feel­ing good about her chances.

Her con­fi­dence proved well-found­ed as she cur­rent­ly has 63.08% of the vote in her race, lead­ing Repub­li­can Tim Cruick­shank who cur­rent­ly has 34.95% and Lib­er­tar­i­an Nathaniel Deily who is at 1.98% and will not advance to the gen­er­al election.

After results were announced, Kud­er­er spoke first, and start­ed by thank­ing all of her vol­un­teers and sup­port­ers. “This is the halfway point; we’ve got to fin­ish the race,” she said, say­ing there will still more doors to knock on and more vot­er to reach before the gen­er­al elec­tion in November.

She said she was encour­aged and relieved by the results.

“When I see num­bers like that, what that tells me is peo­ple are pay­ing atten­tion, they care about their democ­ra­cy, they under­stand what’s at stake and they’re will­ing to go to the bal­lot box.”

Senn said the results in the 41st and 48th “shows what we have known… that our area is becom­ing very blue. Not pur­ple, but blue.”

Thai said that her first place fin­ish is gratifying.

She char­ac­ter­ized her like­ly vic­to­ry as an incred­i­ble oppor­tu­ni­ty and incred­i­ble respon­si­bil­i­ty that she will be tak­ing on. She not­ed that, if elect­ed, she will be the first refugee to serve in the State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. She also gave an impas­sioned, impromp­tu speech about the val­ue of love.

“We do this because we believe in our cause. We do this because we love. With­out love, noth­ing grows. We win because we love. Keep all of that in mind and we are going to go straight for­ward and make sure the world knows that the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca is a coun­try of love,” she said to strong applause.

Also at the par­ty to sup­port her fel­low can­di­dates was State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Van­dana Slat­ter, who is run­ning unop­posed for Posi­tion #2 in the 48th.

She talked about how impor­tant it is to have a Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty in the House to be able to get bills passed. “When I got draft­ed into the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, I felt like I got draft­ed into the Sea­hawks, because it’s a pret­ty awe­some team that we have right here,” she said. “I might have a win today, but we are all win­ning togeth­er and we have to go for­ward together.”

Slat­ter list­ed off some of the accom­plish­ments of this year’s leg­isla­tive ses­sion, thanks to the new Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty, and said main­tain­ing that major­i­ty is vital. It’s “why we need these women here today,” she said.

An attendee shout­ed “Go She-Hawks!” and the whole audi­ence cheered at the new moniker for this slate of pro­gres­sive women can­di­dates on the Eastside.

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