The event fly­er cre­at­ed by Let’s Go Wash­ing­ton for tonight’s event

Tonight, right wing Repub­li­cans from around Wash­ing­ton will be gath­er­ing at mul­ti­mil­lion­aire Bri­an Hey­wood’s Wil­low­crest Sta­bles prop­er­ty just out­side of the cor­po­rate bound­ary of Red­mond, Wash­ing­ton for what they’re billing a “Sum­mer Free­dom Fest” — real­ly a large evening pic­nic with lots of anti-tax rhetoric, can­di­date speech­es, food trucks, and  musi­cal performances.

The Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty, King Coun­ty Repub­li­can Par­ty, and oth­er Repub­li­can groups are all offi­cial spon­sors of this shindig, as you can see from the event fly­er, so it is very much a par­ty gath­er­ing. Speak­ers will include Dave Reichert, Semi Bird, and Raul Gar­cia, who are all run­ning for statewide office, along with right wing media per­son­al­i­ties John Carl­son and Bran­di Kruse. And NPI under­stands there will be a num­ber of addi­tion­al unad­ver­tised speak­ers as well.

For­mer ini­tia­tive pro­mot­er Tim Eyman thinks this event is so impor­tant that he sent out not one, not two, but three invi­ta­tions to his list urg­ing peo­ple to come.

“This week, I sent out two updates about this event. I’m send­ing it again just so to make sure every­one sees it. Hope to see you there,” Eyman wrote, adding that for him and his daugh­ter Riley, who helped him cam­paign in 2020, “Sat­ur­day will be like going to Wood­stock in the 60’s” because “pol­i­tics is in our blood.”

Red­mond is the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute’s home­town and has been our head­quar­ters for the entire­ty of our twen­ty-year his­to­ry. When NPI was found­ed, the East­side was still con­sid­ered a very Repub­li­can area and Red­mond was rep­re­sent­ed in the Leg­is­la­ture and on the King Coun­ty Coun­cil by Repub­li­cans. Parts of the East­side were also rep­re­sent­ed in Con­gress by Republicans.

That has now changed. Red­mond and East King Coun­ty are now rep­re­sent­ed by only Democ­rats at the coun­ty, state, and fed­er­al lev­els. Sarah Per­ry and Clau­dia Bal­duc­ci are our King Coun­ty Coun­cilmem­bers. Man­ka Dhin­gra (a North­west Pro­gres­sive Foun­da­tion board­mem­ber), Pat­ty Kud­er­er, Lar­ry Springer, Roger Good­man, Van­dana Slat­ter, and Amy Walen are our state leg­is­la­tors. And Suzan Del­Bene, Adam Smith, and Kim Schri­er are our rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the U.S. House.

For the ben­e­fit of those unfa­mil­iar with who we are and what our val­ues are (espe­cial­ly Repub­li­cans com­ing to town tonight!), here are some note­wor­thy facts about Red­mond, its vot­ing his­to­ry, and its polit­i­cal identity.

• Red­mond is locat­ed on the ances­tral lands of the Coast Sal­ish peo­ples. Near­by is the Sno­qualmie Tribe’s reser­va­tion. The Sno­qualmie Tribe obtained its fed­er­al recog­ni­tion short­ly before the new mil­len­ni­um. Learn more about the Tribe and its his­to­ry here.
• The City of Red­mond incor­po­rat­ed in 1912 and acquired its name from one of the first Euro­pean set­tlers to build a home here — Luke McRed­mond, who arrived in 1871. The Red­mond His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety main­tains a page where you can read about the ear­ly years of Red­mond on their web­site.
• Red­mond could have just as eas­i­ly been named “Per­ri­go,” after anoth­er one of its ear­ly Euro­pean immi­grants. Per­ri­go Park, where NPI holds its annu­al Sum­mer Anniver­sary Pic­nic, is named in hon­or of the Per­ri­go family.
• Red­mond’s nick­name is the “Bicy­cle Cap­i­tal of the North­west” because we love cycling here. It’s an envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly way to get around. We have thir­ty-three miles of bike lanes on our streets, the only velo­drome in the region at near­by Mary­moor Park, and the longest run­ning bicy­cle race in North Amer­i­ca, part of our sum­mer Der­by Days celebration.
• Speak­ing of Der­by Days, that’s been going on for more than three quar­ters of a cen­tu­ry, and is tra­di­tion­al­ly held this month, in July. It includes parades, a drone show, booths, and lots of activ­i­ties for kids. The city also orga­nizes a win­ter­time fes­ti­val in Decem­ber called RedmondLights.
• Red­mond is home to the east­ern ter­mi­nus for Sound Tran­sit’s Line 2, the project that will bring Link light rail to the East­side, and con­struc­tion is cur­rent­ly under­way on sev­er­al sta­tions that will serve neigh­bor­hoods in the city, includ­ing Over­lake and Down­town. Light rail is a key com­po­nent of the city’s sus­tain­abil­i­ty-focused growth strategy.
• A super­ma­jor­i­ty of Red­mond’s elect­ed city offi­cials iden­ti­fy as female, includ­ing the cur­rent may­or and five of sev­en mem­bers of the city coun­cil. Both can­di­dates for may­or this year also iden­ti­fy as female.
• Red­mond is home to one of the first Mus­lim women ever to be elect­ed to any posi­tion of pub­lic respon­si­bil­i­ty in the PNW: Coun­cilmem­ber Var­isha Khan. She is com­plet­ing her first term this year and not seek­ing reelec­tion. Khan was able to pre­vail over an entrenched incum­bent who iden­ti­fies as Repub­li­can even in an odd-year, low turnout election.
• 74.84% of vot­ers in Red­mond sup­port­ed the Biden-Har­ris tick­et in 2020. That’s almost three-fourths of the city’s elec­torate. If there’s any data point that best reflects how Demo­c­ra­t­ic Red­mond is, it’s prob­a­bly this one.
• Sim­i­lar­ly, oth­er Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates do extreme­ly well in Red­mond. In 2020, Jay Inslee received 21,898 votes in Red­mond, while his ultra MAGA Repub­li­can oppo­nent Loren Culp got only 6,809 votes.
• Even for­mer Repub­li­can Sec­re­tary of State Kim Wyman, the last Repub­li­can to be elect­ed to statewide office in Wash­ing­ton, lost in Red­mond despite win­ning statewide. She received 11,730 votes in the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in the city; her Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lenger Gael Tar­leton, a found­ing NPI board­mem­ber, received 16,163 votes.
• In 2022, Red­mond again enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly vot­ed for Democ­rats for statewide and fed­er­al office. Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray earned 16,019 votes, while Tiffany Smi­ley man­aged just 5,230 votes. Demo­c­ra­t­ic Con­gress­woman Suzan Del­Bene received 16,157 votes, sim­i­lar­ly wal­lop­ing her Repub­li­can oppo­nent Vin­cent J. Cav­a­leri, who got 4,967 votes. All of Red­mond’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­is­la­tors were reelect­ed to new terms by com­fort­able margins.
• In 2018, Red­mond was sup­port­ive of cre­at­ing a cap and invest sys­tem, vot­ing to approve Ini­tia­tive 1631, which failed statewide. (The Leg­is­la­ture lat­er vot­ed to pass a cap and invest sys­tem as part of the Cli­mate Com­mit­ment Act). The oil indus­try’s well-fund­ed oppo­si­tion cam­paign was unable to con­vince a major­i­ty of vot­ers in Red­mond to vote no.

Red­mond is opposed to the nasty, mean-spir­it­ed pol­i­tics of divi­sion, exploita­tion, and big­otry that have come to epit­o­mize the Repub­li­can Party.

Here in Red­mond, we believe in free­dom and mutu­al respon­si­bil­i­ty. We favor pool­ing our resources to get things done. We are an inclu­sive, wel­com­ing city, striv­ing to cre­ate a com­mu­ni­ty that is friend­ly and safe and gov­erned in accor­dance with the pro­gres­sive val­ues that Amer­i­ca was found­ed upon.

In Red­mond, we care about tak­ing cli­mate action, repro­duc­tive free­dom, and look­ing after our most vul­ner­a­ble neigh­bors. Equi­ty and tol­er­ance are impor­tant to us. Gun respon­si­bil­i­ty is impor­tant to us. LGBTQ+ rights are impor­tant to us.

Tonight, Repub­li­cans, you’ll be at the edge of a car­ing city of over 73,000 peo­ple that believes in cre­at­ing a com­mu­ni­ty of good neigh­bors. Wel­come to Red­mond, one of the most pro­gres­sive and Demo­c­ra­t­ic places in the Pacif­ic Northwest.