In my home district (WA-09), we have a compelling race. It’s the most watched and most intriguing house race in Washington State that isn’t currently held by a Republican (WA-03, WA-05, WA-08 are all closely watched races nationally). For the first time ever there are two Democrats on the ballot since Washington has a jungle primary system. And things are already getting ugly.
Demographics of WA-09
Washington’s 9th Congressional District is a sold blue, D+21 seat. Geographically, it’s composed of ultra-liberal South Seattle (my home turf); the working-class South King County suburbs of Renton, Kent, Tukwila, Seatac, and Federal Way; and the wealthy Microsoft/Amazon Eastside suburbs of Mercer Island and Bellevue. There is a HUGE wealth disparity between the richest and poorest in our district; we have the poorest neighborhoods of Seattle and Paul Allen (co-founder of Microsoft) at once. Personally, I think that the 9th is drawn poorly, as each district should be comprised off roughly the same type of demographics, including income. The difference between the upper-class eastern suburbs, latte-sipping and gentrifying Seattle, and the blue-collared southern suburbs is drastic, and should not be in the same congressional district.
We are a very young district. I may be wrong, but I believe we’re the second-youngest district in Washington State.
We are also the only majority-minority district in Washington State. We are roughly 50% white, 20% Asian, 15% black, 10% Hispanic, and 5% other. The state legislature purposefully gerrymandered the 9th from being solely in Seattle suburbs to the south to including parts of Asian-heavy Bellevue and diverse South Seattle with the goal of creating a majority-minority district. This gerrymander is of course why the 9th district boundaries don't make sense. I guess the Washington State legislature wanted to help more POCs to be elected to Congress, which has happened, just not in the 9th.
So yeah, the 9th district has a lot of different people groups. Very rich and very poor; Somali, Korean, Chinese, Indian, Vietnamese, Filipino, Mexican, Jewish, and African-American (all of which have large communities in the 9th); Boeing factory workers and Microsoft software engineers; all-out socialists, moderate Democrats, and Republicans. They all live here. Both Democratic candidates, Adam Smith and Sarah Smith, were asked to describe the 9th in one word in an interview, they said “diverse” and “dynamic” respectively.
The Candidates
There are three candidates: Doug Basler (R), Sarah Smith (D), and Adam Smith (D). But Basler ended up getting third in the top-two primary, ending his candidacy. Basler is a standard Republican, definitely more moderate, but there’s nothing really noteworthy about him. He previously ran in 2014 and 2016 and lost badly. He liked losing so much that he ran again, and will probably again in 2020. Moron.
Adam Smith (D)
Adam Smith is the 22-year incumbent Democrat of the 9th district. He has always represented the 9th but has only represented the more liberal parts of Bellevue and Seattle since 2010 after redistricting. He is a moderate Democrat. He used to be quite conservative in his first few terms voting for the repeal of the estate tax, for criminalizing flag burning and reducing the waiting period for gun purchases to name a few. But then after his seat got more blue in 2010 after redistricting, he immediately became more of a center-left Democrat.
Since 2010, Smith has gotten increasingly more liberal on his votes and stances. Most recently, he has cosponsored Medicare For All, tuition-free 2-year community college, Rep. Jayapal’s bill that would basically disassemble ICE, and has publicly supported environmentalist policies (although has not cosponsored the biggest environmentalist bills in Congress today: the OFF Act, the 105-50, and Keep It in the Ground Act).
Smith is, and has been forever, very strong on abortion and LGBTQ rights, and has the voting record to back it up. He has been a consistent vote for the Democrats in key votes in the recent past. He has voted against every single tax cut brought to the House floor since 1997.
Additionally, Smith is very present in his district. He has grown up and lived in his district his whole life, with the exception of his college years. This is something many incumbents aren’t great at doing, but Adam is definitely known to many in the 9th.
But there are a few areas where Adam Smith is not so great: campaign finance reform, money in politics, and defense.
Smith takes corporate PAC money and has all for all his time in Congress. The vast majority of his money comes from PACs, mainly corporate PACs. In 2016, he was the #1 House recipient of Northrop Grumman, a Republican donor and defense contractor, and continues to take money from Northrop Grumman. He has accepted thousands from US defense contractors Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, and General Dynamics. He has defended his acceptance of corporate money by saying, “not all corporations are bad”.
Now as a result of his hundreds of thousands of dollars from defense contractors, Adam Smith has supported the Iraq War, against withdrawal from Afganistan, continuing cluster bomb sales to Saudi Arabia to bomb Yemen, against withdrawing troops from Iraq and Syria, and many many more pro-war stuff. This is because Northrop Grumman and Raytheon directly benefit from more war, and they give Adam Smith money to vote for war.
Adam Smith is the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee and will be the chairman if the Democrats retake the House.
Additionally, he has received a B from the NRA in 2003. And his most recent grade was a C- in 2012. He has supported restricting Americans’ rights to sue gun companies that may have illegally or carelessly sold a gun to someone; he supported the 2011 National Right To Carry as well as amendments that would make it harder for states to limit the damage of the bill; reducing the waiting period to purchase a gun from 3 days to 1 day; and requiring pilots to carry guns in airplanes. I suspect there is more considering his NRA grade, but I’m too lazy to search through all of the votes. This is an issue near and dear to my heart as a high school student and it’s deeply disturbing to see my congressman is liked by the NRA. He has, to his credit, cosponsored a federal assault weapons ban this year.
Sarah Smith (D)
Sarah Smith is a 30-year-old, totally inexperienced, ultra-progressive woman running for elected office for the first time. She was recruited by Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats to run for a safe blue, majority-minority seat that’s currently being held by an old, moderate, white man that’s been in office forever. Sound familiar?
Sarah Smith supports Medicare For All, a federal jobs guarantee, publicly-funded tuition-free public colleges and universities and trade schools, getting out of costly wars, a Green New Deal, overturning Citizens United, etc. etc. etc. She does not take corporate PAC money and supports the abolition of ICE.
Her campaign is utterly underfunded and has no full-time paid staff.
Sarah Smith has never held elected office. She is a lifelong activist, a former volunteer for Bernie Sanders in 2016, and has done work for her local charities.
Sarah Smith’s main focus to differentiate herself from Adam is that she is anti-war, doesn’t take corporate money, and is a working-class millennial like so many in the 9th.
The Race
Sarah Smith came riding on the coattails of past primary challengers from the left against Adam Smith. Sarah also benefited from the increasingly bitter feelings about Adam Smith in parts of the 9th (South Seattle especially). She essentially inherited the 15% of the primary electorate that voted non-Adam Smith Democrats without lifting a finger. Sarah Smith was largely unknown to the 9th up until Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s victory in June that spurred local media to cover the race, as it featured a similar scenario to New York’s 14th. As a result, her volunteers doubled, she received a lot more donations, and voters knew more about her. She’d go on to win the coveted endorsement of The Stranger, a local progressive newspaper whose endorsements are regarded highly amongst Democrats in the Seattle area.
Over the course of the primary, Adam Smith did most of the attacking. His main line of offense was the Sarah did not live in the district. Sarah defended herself by explaining she was forced to move out of the district to Kent (in the 8th) when her landlord sold her home. She currently lives just 2600ft from the district boundary.
Adam also criticized Sarah’s lack of interest in local issues, saying Sarah’s campaign is centered far more in national issues. Sarah countered that by citing she is the only candidate that has addressed the homelessness and housing crisis in the 9th (which is very real) on her policy page. Adam added a housing section to his issues page shortly after.
Sarah Smith’s attacks against Adam were fewer and more implicit. Throughout the campaign, she mainly sold herself as a bold leader that doesn’t wait until other progressive women take action because she is a progressive woman that will take action. She highlighted Adam’s record on defense and that Adam isn’t a leader, but instead a cautious politician that only fights for issues when he sees it politically beneficial. Sarah also says Adam doesn’t take bold stances. Adam counters that argument by citing his bold stances, including never voting for a tax cut, voting for Obamacare, voting against multiple Republican defense bills, and supporting the Cap and Trade bill. Personally, I do not think voting for Obamacare is “bold”, but whatever floats your boat, I suppose.
Sarah also claims Adam only supported Medicare For All after she announced. This is completely false. Adam supported Medicare For All two months before Sarah announced her candidacy. Sarah’s campaign counters by saying Adam knew he was going to get a progressive challenger because the 9th swung for Bernie in 2016, which is the reason he supported single payer. That may very well be true, but impossible to prove. Adam remains supportive of Medicare For All and is a founding member of the Medicare For All caucus in the House.
What about the Republican Doug Basler? He raised $3,000 and did virtually no campaigning.
The Election
On August 7, the primary happened. And it was DRAMATIC! So the way Washington State does its vote counting is very annoying. Washington is a mail-in state, so the state has been counting votes for three weeks leading up to August 7. They release that vote tally all at once five minutes after polls close, and then that’s it for the night. Then, every day at 4 pm for the following two weeks they release more vote counts. They don’t release numbers as they count but instead release them all at once each day. (groan).
So on election night, they released the first wave of counts:
Adam Smith (D) 51%
Doug Basler (R) 26%
Sarah Smith (D) 24%
Day 2:
Adam 51%
Basler 26%
Sarah 24%
Day 3:
Adam 49%
Sarah 25.5%
Basler 25.3%
Day 4:
Adam 48%
Sarah 27%
Basler 24%
After that, the results pretty much stayed the same as there were little ballots left to be counted. As you can see, late voters pulled for Sarah. Why? The procrastinating millennials like Sarah.
Now What?
Sarah is likely going to lose. She’s going to need some kind of miracle to beat Adam. Adam has the backing of the party, popular Washington State politicians like Pramila Jayapal, Maria Cantwell, and Patty Murray. He has tons more money. And is very politically smart when it comes to getting reelected.
Since the primary, Adam has attended a lot more community events, has invested in new yard signs that make the “Adam” larger than the “Smith”, and has opened up a new line of attacks. These attacks include saying Sarah has not reached out to the diverse communities of the 9th (as if this white person can do it better than that white person (disclosure: I am not white)) and that she only performed well in the primary because she got Bernie people to vote.
I can say that these attacks are false, as I personally know many neighbors that supported both Hillary Clinton and Sarah Smith. Additionally, Sarah outright won Chinatown with double digits, she’s won the Somali vote in South Seattle, she’s won over the Punjabi community in Kent and Renton, and my Korean father has shared that Sarah is popular in the Korean community in Federal Way.
Sarah claims that she can win a lot of the Republican vote in the district because she does not take corporate PAC money and is not a career politician (she has publicly stated she does not intend to make a career out of politics and won’t be in Congress for more than 12 years). Doug Basler has also said voters should choose himself or Sarah over Adam during a debate before the primary. This may have possibly pulled some of his supporters towards Sarah. But honestly, it’s not likely that Sarah, the self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist, will win the Republican vote.
Sarah is banking on the hope that the general election electorate is more friendly to Sarah than the primary electorate. This is will probably be the case as general electorates are always more liberal, younger, poorer, and browner.
Adam is hoping his legacy and experience will keep voters with him.
Again, Adam will likely win. He has a 99.2% chance of winning according to FiveThirtyEight.
Nevertheless, one thing is absolutely clear: Adam Smith’s next lefty challenger (if he wins in 2018) will have a huge advantage taking off of where Sarah left off. And if this next challenger happens to be nonwhite, Adam will have his work cut out for him (again, the 9th is a majority-minority district).
Congrats if you actually read all of this.