Dino Rossi Republican Manka Dhingra Democratic A special election was held on November 7, 2017, to fill the vacant seat in the Washington State Senate representing the 45th district.
[1][2] The 45th legislative district comprised the northeastern suburbs of Seattle in King County, including the cities of Duvall and Woodinville and parts of Kirkland, Redmond, and Sammamish.
[5][6] Oemig lost re-election in 2010 to Republican Andy Hill, also a former Microsoft executive, during a campaign partially funded by the Koch-directed national Americans for Prosperity organization.
[10] Two-time unsuccessful gubernatorial and U.S. Senate candidate Dino Rossi was appointed by the Republican Party and Metropolitan King County Council to fill the vacant seat.
The change of party for the 45th district, the most competitive of several special elections for the state senate in 2017, would complete a Democrat trifecta for the 2018 legislative session.
[19] Dhingra was involved in various non-profit organizations centered around advocacy for mental health and domestic violence survivors;[20] she described herself as non-partisan until the 2016 presidential election.
She worked for Christian missionary organization Iris Global in Mozambique before returning to Washington as an aide to Republican congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers.
By the end of the general campaign in November, a total of $9 million had been spent in the race, making it the costliest ever for a Washington state legislative election.
[28] The Republican campaign, without authorization from Englund, produced a series of spoof advertisements that painted Dhingra supporters as stereotypical "Seattle liberals".
[31] In the second round, with over $9 million spent on the election through campaign contributions and political action committee expenditures, with a small number of votes yet to be counted, Manka Dhingra led Republican Jinyoung Englund by over a 10% margin.
Washington joined the states of California and Oregon to complete a "blue wall" along the West Coast, all sharing a Democrat government trifecta.