If you are a hardy North­west pro­gres­sive, it’s hard to top a chance to lis­ten to one of the lead­ing pro­gres­sive can­di­dates for pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States. For free!

Along­side 15,000 oth­ers, three of us from the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute attend­ed Eliz­a­beth War­ren’s ral­ly at Seat­tle Cen­ter Sunday.

The impres­sive atten­dance fig­ure was a new record for the 2020 War­ren cam­paign, and it’s part of a trend of bur­geon­ing crowds turn­ing out to hear from the senior Unit­ed States Sen­a­tor from Mass­a­chu­setts. Only a few days ago, about 12,000 peo­ple showed up to a ral­ly in Min­neso­ta to hear War­ren’s message.

Sen­a­tor Eliz­a­beth War­ren jogs onstage after being intro­duced by State Sen­a­tor Joe Nguyen (Pho­to: Bob­by Aiyer/Northwest Pro­gres­sive Institute)

Intro­duc­ing War­ren was Joe Nguyen (D‑34th Dis­trict: Seat­tle), State Sen­a­tor from the 34th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict rep­re­sent­ing parts of West Seat­tle and the sur­round­ing area. Nguyen, eight months into his first term, is a strong pro­gres­sive who was sup­port­ed for the Sen­ate by the Wash­ing­ton Con­ser­va­tion Vot­ers, the Region­al Coun­cil of Car­pen­ters, and Seat­tle Tran­sit Blog, among oth­er organizations.

After Nguyen’s intro­duc­tion, War­ren sprint­ed onto the stage, warm­ly greet­ing Nguyen and thank­ing the mul­ti­tude from across the Pacif­ic NW for show­ing up.

War­ren also praised Wash­ing­ton Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee for his con­tri­bu­tion to the pri­ma­ry con­ver­sa­tion. Inslee announced Wednes­day that he would end his pres­i­den­tial cam­paign; the next day, he declared a guber­na­to­r­i­al reelec­tion bid.

War­ren tout­ed the Gov­er­nor’s cli­mate-focused agen­da, and lat­er made clear in the press gag­gle that she shares Inslee’s view that the Demo­c­ra­t­ic field needs a cli­mate debate — con­tra­dict­ing DNC Chair Tom Perez and his sup­port­ers, who vot­ed Sat­ur­day against a res­o­lu­tion that would have sanc­tioned a cli­mate debate.

War­ren has not made cli­mate action the sin­gle over­ar­ch­ing theme of her cam­paign like Inslee did. But she has empha­sized cli­mate jus­tice in her pro­pos­als for heavy infra­struc­ture invest­ments, pub­lic domain tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion, and a cli­mate-focused for­eign pol­i­cy. For War­ren, cli­mate jus­tice is more of an inte­grat­ed con­cern woven into every plan and every relat­ed than a sin­gle-issue crusade.

Eliz­a­beth War­ren speaks to a crowd of 15,000 at Seat­tle Cen­ter on Sun­day, August 25th, 2019 (Pho­to: Bob­by Aiyer/Northwest Pro­gres­sive Institute)

Sit­ting in the back­ground of the ral­ly in the shade were State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty Chair Tina Pod­lows­ki and Seat­tle May­or Jen­ny Durkan. (Pod­lodows­ki, as a state par­ty chair, is neu­tral in the pres­i­den­tial con­test and is not back­ing anyone.)

Seat­tle May­or Jen­ny Durkan at Eliz­a­beth War­ren’s Seat­tle Cen­ter ral­ly (Pho­to: Bob­by Aiyer/Northwest Pro­gres­sive Institute)

May­or Durkan was thanked by War­ren for being a “pro­gres­sive may­or of a pro­gres­sive city”. This com­ment received a notably mut­ed response from the oth­er­wise-bois­ter­ous and ener­getic crowd.

With her style weav­ing in and out between that of a cheery aunt and somber sto­ry­teller, War­ren shared with the crowd her life sto­ry — begin­ning with her child­hood, and how after her father passed when she was twelve, her moth­er was able to work hard and sup­port her fam­i­ly on a min­i­mum-wage, a very faint real­i­ty for many Amer­i­cans today.

Before delv­ing into pol­i­cy specifics (which you can find here) War­ren explained how afford­able edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties made a huge dif­fer­ence for her: pay­ing $50 a semes­ter for col­lege and $450 a semes­ter for law school opened doors to teach­ing and gov­ern­ment oth­er­wise unattainable.

Then came a dis­cus­sion of War­ren’s plans. Big cheers were heard when War­ren vowed to reverse the Cit­i­zens Cor­po­ra­tions Unit­ed deci­sion. War­ren’s wealth tax plan — a 2% tax on assets over $50 mil­lion — was also well-received.

Sen­a­tor Eliz­a­beth War­ren onstage in front of an enthu­si­as­tic crowd at Seat­tle Cen­ter (Pho­to: Bob­by Aiyer/Northwest Pro­gres­sive Institute)

After the ral­ly (billed as a town hall) had con­clud­ed, every sin­gle attendee who want­ed a self­ie with War­ren was giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty. The line snaked all the way around the lawn south of the Inter­na­tion­al Fountain.

Nation­wide, War­ren has been polling between 14–20%, which leaves her in either sec­ond or third place over­all. In Wash­ing­ton, a statewide poll with a sam­ple of six hun­dred and nine­teen like­ly vot­ers con­duct­ed July 22nd — August 1st has War­ren at 14%, behind Biden (19%) and Sanders (18%).

For the 2020 nom­i­na­tion cycle, the Wash­ing­ton State Democ­rats have revised the del­e­gate allo­ca­tion process. In years past, vot­ers will remem­bers local precincts host­ing cau­cus­es to deter­mine the elec­torate’s pre­ferred nominee.

In 2020, the Wash­ing­ton State Democ­rats will allo­cate del­e­gates through a pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry that con­cludes on March 10th.

Ida­ho’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic pri­ma­ry will also con­clude on this date, just shy of three weeks ear­li­er than the 2016 Wash­ing­ton cau­cus­es. Ore­gon will hold its pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry two months lat­er, in May, like it has in past years.

The Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty’s switch to a pri­ma­ry for allo­ca­tion pur­pos­es was made pos­si­ble by leg­is­la­tion sup­port­ed by NPI that tweaked the Revised Code of Wash­ing­ton to make the exist­ing pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry statute respec­tive of the par­ties’ First Amend­ment rights.

Under the plan adopt­ed by the par­ty’s gov­ern­ing body, the par­ty will hold leg­isla­tive dis­trict cau­cus­es to select del­e­gates to the state con­ven­tion and con­gres­sion­al dis­trict cau­cus­es about one month after the pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry is cer­ti­fied. Because all but one lev­el of the cau­cus­es are being retained for del­e­gate selec­tion and par­ty­build­ing pur­pos­es in 2020, the plan adopt­ed by the WSDCC has been called a “pri­ma­ry-cau­cus hybrid” approach.

Among the WSD­C­C’s aims in adopt­ing a pri­ma­ry-cau­cus hybrid plan was to encour­age more can­di­dates to vis­it Wash­ing­ton and spend time in-state.

So far, Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden have both held fundrais­ers in the state, but Sun­day marked the first time a major can­di­date (polling in the dou­ble dig­its) has held a pub­lic event in Wash­ing­ton. (Biden held a closed-door fundraiser.)

Here’s to hop­ing many more can­di­dates from across the Demo­c­ra­t­ic field will make the jour­ney to Cas­ca­dia, engage with activists from across the region, and help vot­ers fig­ure out who they want to cast their bal­lot for next spring.