NPI's Cascadia Advocate

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

Wednesday, October 10th, 2018

Seattle Times endorses Manka Dhingra for a full four year term as 45th District’s senator

Now that she’s an incumbent…

Man­ka Dhin­gra is an accom­plished and com­mit­ted pro­fes­sion­al who should be returned to the Sen­ate rep­re­sent­ing the 45th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict. The Red­mond Democrat’s expe­ri­ence as a coun­ty pros­e­cu­tor and work on men­tal-health issues are assets as the Leg­is­la­ture con­tin­ues work to solve the state’s response to its men­tal-health cri­sis at a state hos­pi­tal and in communities.

Of course, last year the Times was telling vot­ers to pass over Dhin­gra in favor of Jiny­oung Lee Englund, a Repub­li­can with a much thin­ner resume.

Englund has less but still cred­i­ble expe­ri­ence, hav­ing worked as a staffer for U.S. Rep. Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers, R‑Spokane, and as spokes­woman for the Bit­coin Foundation.

Recent­ly, Englund coman­aged a team that devel­oped a phone app for the U.S. Marine Corps. Her hus­band is a Marine.

Englund makes a per­sua­sive case that her elec­tion will pre­serve a “bal­ance of gov­ern­ment” that will bet­ter serve Wash­ing­ton state. For that rea­son, vot­ers in the 45th should elect her.

The vot­ers of the 45th, in their wis­dom, pro­ceed­ed to ignore the Times and elect Man­ka Dhin­gra to take over for Dino Rossi last year. The Sen­ate con­se­quent­ly gained a true Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty for the first time in five years and Dhin­gra went on to have an incred­i­bly suc­cess­ful inau­gur­al ses­sion, spon­sor­ing and cospon­sor­ing bills to strength­en gun safe­ty and improve men­tal health.

In the August Top Two elec­tion, Dhin­gra crushed her Repub­li­can oppo­nent Dale Fonk, the chair of the 45th Dis­trict Repub­li­cans. Her seat­mates Lar­ry Springer and Roger Good­man also won with well over 60% of the vote, leav­ing lit­tle doubt that the 45th Legsla­tive Dis­trict has firm­ly swung into the Demo­c­ra­t­ic column.

Vot­ers in the 45th have now enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly backed Dhin­gra in three con­sec­u­tive elec­tions (August 2017, Novem­ber 2017, August 2018) — all with­out the Times’ endorse­ment. Now, just in time for her fourth elec­tion in six­teen months, she has the edi­to­r­i­al board­’s sup­port, for what­ev­er it’s worth.

Written by Andrew Villeneuve :: 8:30 AM

Categories: Elections

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