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.