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.