Many people felt disappointment after last week's election. Hopes for an enormous blue wave to sweep all the bums out of Congress didn’t happen, but somehow, there was also relief that things didn't go disastrously wrong. After those first impressions, however, what's left are clear signs that Democrats did very, very well. In fact, the results in Washington State were exceptional.
What's emerged is a dramatic shift in Democratic control of our state legislature. Democrats will gain at least two seats in the State Senate and seven or eight seats in the State House. So the new Democratic majority will be 27-22 in the State Senate and 56-42 in the State House, and those are minimum numbers. The margins may yet grow wider in the coming weeks, as there are four additional pickup opportunities for the Dems, all of which are still too close to call. And those races are really close. Republican and Democratic candidates are separated by less than 300 votes out of more than 65,000 cast in each race. Every vote matters.
This will transform Washington State government, where many decisions that matter a lot to all of us get made. Democrats will now have powerful leverage to take real action on clean energy, gun safety, and school funding, in a way they never have before.
We get drawn all the time into national news, but Washington's legislature controls big issues that we all care about.
So high five, people! And it's important to now keep our eyes on Olympia to see what Democrats can accomplish.
Looking ahead, a path to an even deeper blue is before us. To truly fix our state's unfair, regressive tax structure, we’ll need to build these majorities even more to actually get the reform that can help everyone in this state who makes less than six figures.
How to get to that path? Not by just waiting around until 2020. Now is the time to get involved, get informed, and get active. The grassroots groups below are working now to bring progressive change to our state. Join them.
Fuse Washington is the largest progressive organization in Washington. They built an extremely effective get-out-the-vote drive in 2018, and they will play a major role in 2020, too.
Washington Bus focuses on the youth vote. They're building a movement to increase access and leadership for those under age 30.
Code Blue Washington is a supportive online community to get things done. They make finding group actions and events easy.
Friends of Washington, the group I helped found, will send you once a month updates so you can track the hottest State Senate and House races. We never ask you for money, we just send concise candidate profiles and actionable information.
The fight is ahead, and it's all hands on deck. We can carry these big wins forward, but to do so we've got to pay attention; it's so important to know what's happening in our state. Check out the groups above. Join with a friend. This past week we won big, and if we stay engaged, we can win even bigger.
Barak Gaster is one of the founders of Friends of Washington.
