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Manka Dhingra introduced her victory in Washington state’s 45th District Senate race Tuesday night time on the Redhook Brewery in Woodinville, an appropriately good-times setting handy management of the state’s legislative chamber to her fellow Democrats.
By knocking out the final GOP-held legislative physique on the West Coast, Dhingra’s victory means one factor:
The Great Blue Wall is again in place.
On an election day when Democratic candidates unseated their Republican rivals in races from Virginia to Maine to New Jersey, delivering what the Seattle Times known as the “GOP’s most significant day of defeat in the young Trump presidency,” Dhingra’s victory in Washington state over Republican Jinyoung Englund means the West Coast is now the strong heart of the resistance, with Democrats controlling legislatures and governorships from Seattle all the way down to San Diego.
As the New York Times experiences, Washington State Senate chief Sharon Nelson “conveyed the party’s grand aspirations in an almost Trump-like phrase:”
“A blue wall,” she mentioned, stretching “from the Canadian border to the Mexican border.”
Dhingra, who thanked the brewpub crowd and took a congratulatory name from former Vice President Joe Biden, got here out on high within the the highest-profile race in Washington’s legislature in years (and its costliest ever at $9 million), claiming 55 p.c of the vote within the nearly-completed rely on Wednesday. The victory, baduming it holds, brings an enormous shot of political adrenaline, not only for the first-time candidate in Dhingra however for Democrats throughout the nation who see this week’s races as bellwethers for extra anti-Trump modifications to come back.
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Each win, say Democrats, constitutes a thumbs-down for President Trump by voters.
(Only a spoil-sport would notice that the Democrats now have full political management of simply eight states, whereas the Republicans have the identical in 26 states.)
The lead for Dhingra, a first-time candidate and senior deputy prosecutor for King County, had Democrats’ heads spinning on the implications.
Might the West Coast states band collectively on points like gun management, marijuana legalization, and environmental regulation? Could there even be a regional cap-and-trade system to manage carbon emissions, leaping off California’s regime and together with even Canada?
“We become the last brick in the big blue wall up and down the West Coast,” state Democratic Party Chair Tina Podlodowski instructed supporters at election-night social gathering for Dhingra, the senior deputy prosecutor for King County.
The Los Angeles Times headline prematurely of yesterday’s election known as it “A West Coast Wall of Trump Resistance.”
“A state Senate race pitting two campaign novices in the upscale suburbs east of Seattle,” wrote the paper’s Mark Z. Barabak, “has turned into a major battle between the two national parties, becoming the costliest legislative contest in state history and serving as a test of the Trump effect far from the other Washington.”
The GOP, in fact, is smarting from the polling-places bruising it has taken this week.
“If you have one-party rule… you can see what happens in Seattle,” mentioned Susan Hutchison, the state GOP chair, utilizing what the LA Times known as “Republican shorthand depicting the city as a slough of drugs, homelessness and wacky liberalism.”
Said Hutchinson: “It’s dangerous.”
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