Kim Schrier wins: Associated Press, Seattle Times project Democratic victory in WA-08

Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Kim Schri­er will be return­ing to Con­gress for a third con­sec­u­tive term rep­re­sent­ing the geo­graph­ic heart of Wash­ing­ton State, The Asso­ci­at­ed Press and The Seat­tle Times pro­ject­ed today.

After three counts, Schri­er remains more than ten thou­sand votes ahead of Repub­li­can chal­lenger Matt Larkin, who unsuc­cess­ful­ly ran for Attor­ney Gen­er­al two years ago against Demo­c­ra­t­ic incum­bent Bob Ferguson.

Larkin is the third Repub­li­can can­di­date to be van­quished by Schri­er in what is the state’s only “tossup” con­gres­sion­al dis­trict. Schri­er pre­vi­ous­ly defeat­ed peren­ni­al can­di­date Dino Rossi in 2018 and then beat Jesse Jensen in 2020.

The 8th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict was con­tin­u­ous­ly held by Repub­li­cans from its for­ma­tion until the 2018 midterms, when the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty made cap­tur­ing it a top pri­or­i­ty. Schri­er — a pedi­a­tri­cian from Issaquah who has worked extreme­ly hard to rep­re­sent com­mu­ni­ties on both sides of the Cas­cades — made pro­tect­ing repro­duc­tive rights and invest­ing in pub­lic safe­ty her key 2022 themes.

“I am hon­ored to rep­re­sent this dis­trict once again in Con­gress,” said Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Schri­er in a vic­to­ry state­ment. “This elec­tion was a choice about who this dis­trict wants as their voice in the oth­er Wash­ing­ton. I am thrilled that our work to bring down costs, pro­tect a wom­an’s right to choose, and sup­port local police res­onat­ed with peo­ple across the 8th dis­trict. We have more work to do and you can count on me to con­tin­ue to deliv­er results for this district.”

“Repub­li­cans attacked the Con­gress­woman on the air­waves for months and spent over $8 mil­lion in their efforts to flip this seat, with noth­ing to show for it,” said an elat­ed Hana Tadesse, Schri­er’s cam­paign spokesper­son. “The vot­ers of the eighth dis­trict made it clear who they want rep­re­sent­ing them. This deci­sive vic­to­ry proved there is no one bet­ter suit­ed for the job than Kim.”

The DCCC swift­ly chimed in with its congratulations.

“Con­grat­u­la­tions to Con­gress­woman Kim Schri­er on her re-elec­tion,” said Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Sean Patrick Mal­oney, who was unsuc­cess­ful in his own campaign.

“Con­gress­woman Schri­er has proven to be an inde­pen­dent and effec­tive voice for the peo­ple of Washington’s 8th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict. She has got­ten thir­teen bills signed into law since tak­ing office, includ­ing leg­is­la­tion to low­er the cost of pre­scrip­tion drugs like insulin, and has always stood up for a woman’s right to make her own health care deci­sions. I’m con­fi­dent that she will con­tin­ue this impor­tant work on behalf of Wash­ing­ton fam­i­lies in Congress.”

An unre­leased June 2022 NPI poll of the 8th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict sug­gest­ed that Schri­er would have a three point advan­tage over Larkin in a hypo­thet­i­cal gen­er­al elec­tion matchup. Schri­er’s cur­rent mar­gin of vic­to­ry is just over four points.

As in pre­vi­ous cycles, Schri­er’s win was pow­ered by sub­ur­ban and exur­ban King Coun­ty, where she has 62.19% of the vote. Though she isn’t win­ning any of the coun­ties east of the moun­tains, she’s doing bet­ter than a Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date usu­al­ly does, which is also con­tribut­ing to her advan­tage over Larkin. In fact, Schri­er has a high­er per­cent­age of the vote in Dou­glas, Kit­ti­tas, and Chelan coun­ties than she does in the Pierce Coun­ty WA-08 precincts.

Democ­rats ham­mered Larkin relent­less­ly for say­ing that “this isn’t the year for mod­er­a­tion” and idol­iz­ing ultra MAGA extrem­ist Mar­jorie Tay­lor Greene. Larkin also caught flak for argu­ing that Wash­ing­ton’s min­i­mum wage should be low­ered.

Larkin attempt­ed to por­tray him­self as rea­son­able and thought­ful in his only debate with Schri­er, but stum­bled a few times, includ­ing when he said he “con­doned” the attack on Paul Pelosi instead of say­ing that he “con­demned” it.

Repub­li­cans had hoped to take WA-08 as part of a “red wave” night.

But instead, it was Schri­er and her team who cel­e­brat­ed hav­ing a healthy lead on Elec­tion Night and anoth­er empow­er­ing vic­to­ry to look for­ward to.