Hope-scrolling? Depths of despair? Generally confused? If you’re not sure what to feel after Tuesday night’s election results, you’re not alone.
We’re chiming in on some of those key elections – the nail-biters and the done-and-dusted alike – because working people have the biggest stake in who our lawmakers become and whose interests they represent, and we want to dissect those stakes together. Let’s get into it.
First of all: how blue and how wavey is the blue wave really? Both across Washington state and across the country, candidates who put working people first are winning. That applies both to Democrats running against Republicans and pro-worker Democrats running against corporate Democrats. These wins show that candidates who speak to and take seriously the crisis of affordability that working people experience are the candidates we want in office. Some noteworthy examples include…
Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani beat corporate Democrat Andrew Cuomo for Mayor of New York. Mamdani ran a campaign laser-focused on addressing the daily challenge of affording housing, childcare, and transportation in NYC, which stood in stark contrast to the message of corporate status quo policymaking that defined Cuomo. Mamdani won resoundingly because of it.
Democrats Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger beat Republicans to win the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia.
Two Georgia Democrats flipped seats from red to blue on the state’s Public Service Commission.
Two Democrats flipped a pair of state Senate seats in Mississippi, finally breaking through a Republican supermajority in a deep-red state.
Right here at home, Deb Krishnadasan is beating her Republican challenger in LD 26, Victoria Hunt is beating her Republican challenger in LD 5, and Vandana Slatter is beating her corporate Democratic opponent in LD 48 for three toss-up state Senate seats.
Let’s zoom in: how are Working Washington’s endorsed candidates doing? The short answer = good… so far… with an asterisk.
GOOD – our endorsed candidates who are absolutely going to win are Alexis Mercedes Rinck (Seattle City Council Po. 8), Dionne Foster (Seattle City Council Po. 9), Eddie Lin (Seattle City Council D2), Brianna Thomas (State Representative, LD 34), and Girmay Zahilay (King County Executive). Their wins mean the city council, the state legislature, and the King County executive office just got a lot more committed to workers’ rights, fair wages, and strong labor enforcement.
SO FAR – our endorsed candidate who is slightly ahead in a race that is nerve-wrackingly close is Edwin Obras (State Representative, LD 33). Edwin is a pro-worker champ running against a corporate Democrat opposed to affordable housing and raising minimum wage. Cross all your fingers!
ASTERISK – our endorsed candidate for Mayor of Seattle, Katie Wilson, is currently trailing incumbent Mayor Bruce Harrell by about 4,300 votes. However, there are still about 44,000 votes left to count. If Katie wins at least 55.9% of the remaining ballots, she can still win – and if she does, she will have beat the over $1.07 million (read that again, million) in corporate PAC spending that was poured into this race on behalf of Harrell.
Here’s our big takeaway. Working people are sick of corporate interests superseding our interests. We’re tired of our cost of living going up, our wages failing to keep up, and corporate politicians gutting our healthcare and retirement systems to give massive tax breaks to multibillion-dollar companies.
Candidates who successfully spoke to the day-to-day challenge of getting by are clearly winning.
And ultimately, those are the candidates that we endorsed as Working Washington. The candidates that we vetted and chose to support were the ones that we knew would stand up to giant corporations and the ultra-wealthy and put workers’ priorities first. So far, that appears to be the message that resonated with voters across the state and across the country.
We’ll be keeping a close eye on the results as the next few days of ballot-counting unfold. Until then, follow along on our socials for more takes, and get scrappy with us in the comments to offer your own.