Democrats gained a majority in Washington’s state Senate this week, securing control of all branches of governments in the three states along the West Coast.
With most mail ballots counted, Democratic prosecutor Manka Dhingra won the race in Washington’s 45th District over Republican Jinyoung Lee Englund, a former Capitol Hill staffer, after a campaign that cost both candidates and a swarm of outside groups nearly $9 million. The Associated Press called the race on Thursday afternoon.
Dhingra’s victory puts Democrats firmly in command of a state that had been trending bluer and will allow the party to pursue a progressive agenda that had been bottled up by Republicans.
Democrats have won at least 27 state legislative seats across the country since the start of the year, marking a turnaround after losing more than 1,000 legislative seats during the Obama years. (our emphasis)Here's what that looks like graphically (click on image to enlarge) -
We need to, and will, expand that Blue America map over the next few years. But for now, the West Coast is the Best Coast.
BONUS: It's more important than ever to elect Dems to state government. With Congressional redistricting coming up in 2020 and the right-wing movement to revise the Constitution through a Constitutional Convention that could wreak havoc on women's reproductive rights, gun control, and more, attention to state-level positions has never been more important.
4 comments:
All hail the west coast! I don't think we'll ever be able to match that here on the east coast.
Maybe someday at least from Maryland to Massachusetts...
Democratic dominance here in Oregon can be explained in three words: "voting by mail". We've had this system for as long as I've lived here. By making voting easy and convenient, it guarantees high turnout -- and when turnout is high, Democrats do better. In the 2014 election, which nationally had the lowest turnout in 70 years and gave Republicans a wave of wins, the turnout in Oregon was 69% (as high as a typical Presidential-year election). That year, we passed legal recreational marijuana, re-elected our Democratic Governor and Senator, and increased the Democratic majority in the legislature.
Republicans can't win here because they never get the off-year low turnout they need to get a foothold. Voting by mail would work just as well in any other blue or purple state.
Infidel - that's a good point. Anything that makes it easier to vote is anathema to Republicans (see Commission, Kobach). Why more blue states haven't adopted voting by mail is beyond me.
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