Walkinshaw mapping out his results on Election Night earlier this week at the Comet (Image: CHS)
Capitol Hill’s Brady Walkinshaw will have his work cut out this November. The current 43rd District rep will go on to the general election this fall to battle 37th District rep Pramila Jayapal for a seat in Washington D.C. representing Congressional District 7.
Walkinshaw pulled ahead into second place in the August primary in Friday’s vote tally with 21.35% of the vote. The widening gap with Walkinshaw convinced King County Council member Joe McDermott to concede the race Friday night.
“I am excited to carry our positive progressive vision for the Pacific Northwest into the general election,” Walkinshaw said in a statement released Friday. “We need leadership that believes climate change will be a defining issue for the next generation of progressive leaders, and who will work together to deliver real results at home from transportation to housing.”
Walkinshaw said his advance to the general election shows that the 43rd District “is ready for a new generation in Congress.”
The race puts a rare opportunity on the line to represent Seattle in Congress where openings are often carefully managed to give party favorites an appointed head start on any competition. Longtime representative Jim McDermott (no relation to Joe) announced his retirement earlier this year leaving the District 7 unusually wide open.
In her statement Friday night, Jayapal emphasized the major gap Walkinshaw will need to close before November. Jayapal said she was “encouraged by her overwhelming support in the primary” that placed the candidate “20 percentage points ahead of her nearest rival.”
Walkinshaw has cited a variety of issues he wants to tackle including undoing Citizens United, passing aggressive environmental protections and imposing stricter regulations on the financial sector. Jayapal has outlined her main issues as fighting to raise the minimum wage, expanding Social Security and Medicare, clean energy, and making college debt-free.
If Walkinshaw, a 32-year-old gay Cuban-American who lives on Capitol Hill, is elected in November, he would be the first openly gay member of Congress from the state and the first Latino Democrat from Washington elected to a federal office.
Jayapal, a first-term senator serving the state’s 37th District, has collected endorsements from many elected officials including 2016 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, LGBTQ leaders, and representatives of other progressive organizations. Jayapal is vying to become the first Indian American woman elected to Congress.
Pramila Jayapal would also be a first–the first Indian-American elected to Congress from the state of Washington.
Thanks for adding that. She would also be the first Indian American woman elected to Congress. Updated above.
The minute the democratic party can say they have an Indian-American woman in congress, they’ll stick her in the money-cave, and she’ll be making phone calls to Indian business leaders asking for donations.
Watch the Jon Oliver clip about how congressional fundrasising works. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylomy1Aw9Hk
I don’t doubt Pramila is an amazing human being, but she’ll be much better for the party machine than she will be for us.
Tech jobs are squeezing us (my family) to south side. Our rent goes up every year, year-on-year. The Seattle school system moved their hours so my kid finishes school at 2PM and my wife and I both work. I drive an uber on the weekends to pay for my kids afterschool care, because the afterschool care from his school just vanished.
I’m all for making history, but it’s time someone in charge made people like me a first priority.