Declar­ing that “pol­i­tics should be about peo­ple, not careers,” the 34th Leg­isla­tive Dis­tric­t’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic State Sen­a­tor Joe Nguyen today offi­cial­ly launched his cam­paign for King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive, the top elect­ed posi­tion in Wash­ing­ton State’s most pop­u­lous juris­dic­tion: Mar­tin Luther King Jr. County.

Nguyen’s entrance into the race had been expect­ed: the first-term state sen­a­tor, a ris­ing star in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, has been reach­ing out to Demo­c­ra­t­ic activists and pro­gres­sive lead­ers for weeks to advise them of his intentions.

With the leg­isla­tive ses­sion hav­ing adjourned Sine Die on Sun­day, Nguyen is turn­ing his atten­tion to his cam­paign, which seeks to offer King Coun­ty vot­ers an alter­na­tive to incum­bent Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­ti­ne’s leadership.

Here’s his announce­ment video:

Con­stan­tine, fifty-nine, was first elect­ed Exec­u­tive in 2009, defeat­ing Repub­li­can Susan Hutchi­son, a for­mer KIRO TV anchor. Hutchi­son went on to become Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty Chair and then unsuc­cess­ful­ly chal­lenged Maria Cantwell for Sen­ate in 2018. A fanat­i­cal Trump boost­er, Hutchi­son was present dur­ing the Jan­u­ary 6th attack on the Unit­ed States Capitol.

After hand­i­ly defeat­ing Hutchi­son dur­ing the midst of the Great Reces­sion, Con­stan­tine sought reelec­tion to a sec­ond term in 2013 and then a third in 2017 with no cred­i­ble oppo­si­tion, hav­ing suc­cess­ful­ly steered King Coun­ty around some very dif­fi­cult shoals with the help of for­mer 2009 cam­paign rival Fred Jar­rett, who joined Con­stan­ti­ne’s team as Deputy Coun­ty Executive.

Con­stan­tine announced last autumn that he would be seek­ing a fourth term.

“Our com­mu­ni­ties face unprece­dent­ed short and long-term chal­lenges as this cri­sis impacts our health, qual­i­ty of life, and econ­o­my,” said Con­stan­tine in a Novem­ber 16th, 2020 state­ment. “Work­ing along­side our nation­al­ly renowned pub­lic health experts and spe­cial­ists across the region, we will fight this pan­dem­ic, imple­ment a vac­ci­na­tion plan, and save lives. And we will use this unprece­dent­ed moment to rebuild and cre­ate a fair­er, more just society.”

Nguyen con­tends that now is the per­fect time for new lead­er­ship and fresh think­ing. Togeth­er with a group of his sup­port­ers, he made the case for change in a speech deliv­ered at Seat­tle’s Hing Hay Park just before noon today.

Sur­round­ed by sup­port­ers, Joe Nguyen (D‑34th Dis­trict: West Seat­tle, White Cen­ter, Vashon Island) deliv­ers his cam­paign kick­off speech in Seat­tle (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

“Today, too many peo­ple are strug­gling to get by,” Nguyen said.

“In order to adjust to the chal­lenges of today, we need lead­er­ship that reflects the urgency of this moment. Pol­i­tics should be about peo­ple, not careers.”

“And it’s increas­ing­ly clear that gov­ern­ment run by trans­ac­tion­al politi­cians [does] not serve com­mu­ni­ties. Deci­sions from the top down are easy, but they do not solve real and sys­temic prob­lems. Engag­ing com­mu­ni­ties, being mind­ful of the peo­ple you serve, hav­ing the courage to change sys­tems on behalf of the peo­ple you work for: that’s good gov­ern­ing. And I’m here to do the work. That work requires imag­i­na­tion, lis­ten­ing, trust, and know­ing when to let the peo­ple lead.”

“Every day, at every lev­el, we’re ask­ing our­selves: how do we re-imag­ine a world that bet­ter serves peo­ple and com­mu­ni­ties? The work is dif­fi­cult, and with­out humil­i­ty, it is impos­si­ble,” Nguyen added. “This pan­dem­ic has revealed what so many of us already knew: our sys­tems are bro­ken. But rather than despair, I am filled with hope. By lay­ing bare the inequities found in every facet of our soci­etal struc­tures, we are pre­sent­ed with a once in a gen­er­a­tional oppor­tu­ni­ty to right the errors of the past, and cre­ate a New Deal for King County.”

State Sen­a­tor Joe Nguyen con­cludes his remarks announc­ing his can­di­da­cy for King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

Nguyen and Con­stan­tine have a lot in common.

Both hold strong pro­gres­sive con­vic­tions and sup­port sen­si­ble pol­i­cy direc­tions like expand­ing mass tran­sit. Both live in West Seat­tle and either have or cur­rent­ly do rep­re­sent the 34th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict in the Wash­ing­ton State Legislature.

That means that not only are they neigh­bors, they rep­re­sent each oth­er. Con­stan­tine is Nguyen’s con­stituent, and Nguyen is Con­stan­ti­ne’s constituent.

That’s hard­ly their only polit­i­cal link.

When Con­stan­tine was in the Leg­is­la­ture, decades ago, pri­or to get­ting into local pol­i­tics, Nguyen was one of his pages. Nowa­days, the thir­ty-sev­en year old Nguyen works at Red­mond-based Microsoft as a senior pro­gram manager.

Though they share many sim­i­lar­i­ties, there are some aspects of their polit­i­cal think­ing that dif­fer. Nguyen has spo­ken crit­i­cal­ly (and did so again today) of the coun­ty’s con­struc­tion of a new youth deten­tion facil­i­ty, argu­ing that mon­ey could have been bet­ter spent invest­ing in alter­na­tives to incarceration.

Nguyen also points out that under Con­stan­ti­ne’s watch, King Coun­ty has strug­gled to fig­ure out how to suc­cess­ful­ly house peo­ple who are home­less, despite hav­ing declared home­less­ness an emer­gency half a decade ago.

Nguyen is also an unabashed sup­port­er of per­ma­nent­ly elim­i­nat­ing fares on our bus­es and trains, thus mak­ing tran­sit free to ride for every­body. (This is a pol­i­cy direc­tion that NPI and many oth­er tran­sit advo­cates strong­ly support.)

Should Nguyen and Con­stan­tine win the Top Two elec­tion, King Coun­ty vot­ers will have an unprece­dent­ed choice in the Novem­ber runoff between two Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates who hold pro­gres­sive ideals and espouse pro­gres­sive pol­i­cy direc­tions. It would be a matchup like none we’ve seen for this office before, and would be the lat­est evi­dence yet that the Repub­li­can Par­ty is all but extinct in King County.

(Offi­cial­ly, King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive is a “non­par­ti­san” office, but both Con­stan­tine and Nguyen iden­ti­fy as Democ­rats, and with the notable excep­tion of the judi­cia­ry, which is gov­erned by a set of canons that don’t apply to leg­isla­tive or exec­u­tive posi­tions, the notion of “non­par­ti­san” offices is a fiction.)

Nguyen’s path to vic­to­ry won’t be easy. While David Hack­ney, Gir­may Zahi­lay, and Sam Cho have proven that well known polit­i­cal fig­ures with­in King Coun­ty can be defeat­ed for state and local office, expect Con­stan­tine to bring plen­ty of ener­gy to his reelec­tion cam­paign in addi­tion to his experience.

Con­stan­tine is a firm believ­er in par­ty­build­ing and lead­er­ship development.

Before and through­out his time as Exec­u­tive, he has con­sis­tent­ly shown up to help pro­gres­sive can­di­dates build their cam­paigns, whether help­ing the Fan­tas­tic Four pre­vail in Burien or help­ing Man­ka Dhin­gra win in the 45th.

He’s done the same for pro­gres­sive orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing this one.

Mem­o­rably, he was one of the elect­ed offi­cials present at NPI’s very first Spring Fundrais­ing Gala in May of 2008, and has been spon­sor­ing NPI’s research and advo­ca­cy — includ­ing our jour­nal­ism here on the Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate — for years.

Con­stan­tine also spoke at NPI’s first post-reces­sion gala in June of 2010 and NPI’s very first Sum­mer Anniver­sary Pic­nic in August of 2013.

Like our team, he has been a stal­wart oppo­nent of Tim Eyman’s destruc­tive ini­tia­tives. King Coun­ty was among the plain­tiffs that suc­cess­ful­ly sued to have Eyman’s I‑976 declared uncon­sti­tu­tion­al after the 2019 election.

King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine leads a NO on I‑976 press con­fer­ence in Seat­tle (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/Northwest Pro­gres­sive Institute)

In addi­tion, Con­stan­tine has strong name recog­ni­tion and an exten­sive track record to run on, along with a long list of ear­ly endorse­ments, which his cam­paign tout­ed again today. (Those endorse­ments include Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee, MLK Labor, and most of Nguyen’s State Sen­ate col­leagues from King County.)

NPI does not endorse can­di­dates or engage in elec­tion­eer­ing for or against any can­di­date. Con­se­quent­ly, we will not back either can­di­date’s campaign.

Free, fair, and con­test­ed elec­tions are a key char­ac­ter­is­tic of a healthy democ­ra­cy. In step­ping for­ward to chal­lenge Dow Con­stan­tine for a fourth term, Joe Nguyen is ensur­ing that vot­ers will have a choice between at least two car­ing, cred­i­ble can­di­dates for King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive this year. We look for­ward to bring­ing you addi­tion­al cov­er­age of this impor­tant race and ana­lyz­ing the can­di­dates’ ideas and pri­or­i­ties in the weeks and months between now and Elec­tion Day.