Bob Ferguson, Maria Cantwell, Jay Inslee headline 2024 Washington State Democratic Convention gala dinner

Wel­come back to the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute’s con­tin­u­ing cov­er­age of the 2024 Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Con­ven­tion in Bellevue. 

Ear­li­er tonight, hun­dreds of Wash­ing­ton state del­e­gates, press, con­ven­tion staff, and par­ty sup­port­ers came togeth­er at the Mey­den­bauer Cen­ter to hear from a speak­ing line­up that includ­ed U.S. Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell and Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee, as well as Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic fron­trun­ner for governor.

Sal­ad and drinks were served as the guests entered Cen­ter Hall B and found their seats. Many leg­isla­tive dis­trict orga­ni­za­tions spon­sored tables, as did many can­di­dates and elect­ed offi­cials. A num­ber of labor unions also par­tic­i­pat­ed as sponsors. 

Wash­ing­ton State Par­ty Chair Shasti Con­rad offered open­ing remarks around 7 PM. She is the youngest chair in par­ty his­to­ry, as well as the first woman of col­or to chair the par­ty, elect­ed unan­i­mous­ly last year by the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cen­tral Com­mit­tee to suc­ceed the leg­endary Tina Podlodowski. 

“I am extreme­ly proud to have a room full of Democ­rats from all across the state ded­i­cat­ed to mak­ing sure Democ­rats win up and down the bal­lot,” Con­rad declared to rau­cous applause. 

After thank­ing the state’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion for their sup­port of the par­ty, Con­rad offered cri­tiques of guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date Dave Reichert and the Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty. She denounced Repub­li­cans’ plans to defund the EPA and reverse progress on police account­abil­i­ty and repro­duc­tive rights before intro­duc­ing state Attor­ney Gen­er­al and guber­na­to­r­i­al hope­ful Bob Ferguson.

Fer­gu­son opened his com­ments by jok­ing­ly assur­ing atten­dees that he was the real Bob Fer­gu­son, refer­ring to two oth­er men named Robert Fer­gu­son who were recruit­ed to run for gov­er­nor by crooked right wing oper­a­tive Glen Mor­gan.

Those men with­drew after they found out they were com­mit­ting felonies pun­ish­able by up to ten years in prison.

Fer­gu­son exhort­ed Democ­rats to avoid com­pla­cen­cy. He empha­sized the close mar­gin of pre­vi­ous guber­na­to­r­i­al races in Wash­ing­ton, espe­cial­ly the close race in 2004 between Chris Gre­goire and Dino Rossi. In recent races not fea­tur­ing an incum­bent (all of which Democ­rats won), Fer­gu­son point­ed out that the mar­gin has not exceed­ed 3%. 

Fer­gu­son cit­ed four dif­fer­ences between his can­di­da­cy and Dave Reichert’s to make his case for why Wash­ing­to­ni­ans should vote for him to be the state’s next governor.

The crowd loud­ly voiced their agree­ment as Fer­gu­son ticked through his list of issues, from repro­duc­tive rights to mar­riage equal­i­ty to health­care access and Reichert’s appalling align­ment with wannabe dic­ta­tor and con­vict­ed felon Don­ald Trump. 

Fer­gu­son tout­ed his own record fight­ing Trump as Attor­ney Gen­er­al. “We will need a gov­er­nor who knows how to stand up to that anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic indi­vid­ual,” Fer­gu­son declared. “I am proud that my team defeat­ed Don­ald Trump before more than fifty times.”

The next speak­er, state Sen­a­tor T’wina Nobles, empha­sized the leg­is­la­tion she hoped to pass when the Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture recon­venes for its long ses­sion in Jan­u­ary. “We need to work to secure our chil­dren’s future. We need to work to mit­i­gate against cli­mate change, to help more fam­i­lies, not just sur­vive day to day but to thrive.”

Nobles reit­er­at­ed that before the Leg­is­la­ture can get back to work on the peo­ple’s busi­ness, Democ­rats need­ed to make it through this election. 

Nobles rem­i­nisced on her own expe­ri­ences as a can­di­date for local office and her sub­se­quent ser­vice in the Sen­ate (notably, she pro­vid­ed the deci­sive vote in 2021 to levy a cap­i­tal gains tax on the wealthy to fund pub­lic schools), and offered advice and encour­age­ment to first-time and return­ing can­di­dates in the audience.

Three speak­ers, all state leg­isla­tive can­di­dates in the 14th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict, took the stage after Nobles: Maria Bel­tran, Chelsea Dimas, and Ana Ruiz Kennedy. Bel­tran is run­ning for Sen­ate, while Dimas and Ruiz Kennedy are run­ning for the House. 

All three empha­sized the new sta­tus of the 14th LD as a major­i­ty Lati­no district.

Bel­tran told her sto­ry of work­ing straight out of col­lege as an orga­niz­er for the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty and her twelve year jour­ney to becom­ing a can­di­date for State Sen­ate. Bel­tran not­ed with con­fi­dence: “When we’re able to flip our seats, I will be the first demo­c­ra­t­ic Lati­na state sen­a­tor from Yaki­ma. I will be the first Demo­c­rat to win in thir­ty plus years in Cen­tral Washington.” 

(The last Demo­c­rat to win a seat in the 14th LD was future gov­er­nor Jay Inslee.)

Bel­tran empha­sized the impor­tance of this elec­tion for Lati­no vot­ers who have not his­tor­i­cal­ly had a voice in gov­ern­ment and their unprece­dent­ed oppor­tu­ni­ty to elect three Lati­na Demo­c­ra­t­ic candidates. 

Like Bel­tran, Chelsea Dimas dis­cussed her cam­paign pri­or­i­ties, from the right to hous­ing, the right to a healthy plan­et, and the right to have “a seat at the table to have a say in the deci­sion mak­ing process in Wash­ing­ton State.”

Ruiz Kennedy spoke of not hav­ing access to health care and child­care while she was preg­nant, and the lin­guis­tic and cul­tur­al bar­ri­ers that barred Lati­no com­mu­ni­ties from these resources. 

This elec­tion, accord­ing to Kennedy, “is a chance for women like me to have the health­care they need, and for work­ers to get respect and the pay they deserve.”

U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Adam Smith, who had to hus­tle to get up on stage, echoed Bob Ferguson’s sen­ti­ment to not take Washington’s rep­u­ta­tion as a blue bas­tion for grant­ed. Smith’s com­ments focused more on nation­al issues and the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. He cit­ed the advo­ca­cy and mes­sag­ing of his friend Simon Rosen­berg, who has made it his per­son­al mis­sion to help Democ­rats stay pos­i­tive dur­ing a stress­ful elec­tion cycle.

“I’d rather be us [than] them,” Smith remarked. 

Smith also called on his par­ty to cel­e­brate Demo­c­ra­t­ic accom­plish­ments rather than just bemoan Repub­li­can fail­ures. “Please be enthu­si­as­tic and excit­ed about every­thing that we’re doing to make this coun­try a bet­ter place,” Smith asked of the del­e­gates. Instead of focus­ing on Dave Reichert’s oppo­si­tion to the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act, for exam­ple, Democ­rats should empha­size their own role in get­ting it passed.

Smith was fol­lowed by U.S. Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell, who praised his role in leg­is­la­tion that would ban hedge funds from own­ing sin­gle fam­i­ly hous­ing and his col­lab­o­ra­tion on an effort to build 200,000 units of afford­able hous­ing in Washington. 

Cantwell tout­ed Demo­c­ra­t­ic accom­plish­ments in infrastructure.

“We deliv­ered the largest infra­struc­ture invest­ment in our lives… and we have a light rail sys­tem right out­side the door here, from Belle­vue to Red­mond, because Democ­rats pre­vailed in mak­ing an invest­ment,” Cantwell said. 

She brought the del­e­gates to their feet in an elec­tri­fy­ing moment as she called on the par­ty to leave noth­ing on the field as it works to low­er Amer­i­cans’ cost of liv­ing and secure a more inclu­sive, pros­per­ous future for everyone. 

Last­ly, atten­dees heard from out­go­ing Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee. 

The theme of Inslee’s speech was defeat­ing the destruc­tive slate of ini­tia­tives pro­posed by Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty Chair Jim Walsh and fund­ed by mul­ti­mil­lion­aire Bri­an Hey­wood. All three of these, Inslee argued, are dis­hon­est attempts by Repub­li­cans to roll back progress in fund­ing edu­ca­tion, com­bat­ing cli­mate dam­age, and improv­ing access to health­care. Inslee asked del­e­gates to pri­or­i­tize get­ting out the vote in oppo­si­tion to Ini­tia­tives 2109, 2117, and 2124 this autumn. 

Inslee closed out the din­ner with this call to action: 

“We are not going back­wards on the envi­ron­ment, back­wards on edu­ca­tion, back­wards on hous­ing, back­wards on abor­tion… Wash­ing­ton is a for­ward state!”

Fol­low­ing a few clos­ing words of grat­i­tude from Chair Con­rad, atten­dees social­ized or head­ed for the exits to rest up for the gen­er­al ses­sion, which begins in about twelve hours. We will bring you mul­ti­ple reports from this last phase of the con­ven­tion. Join us tomor­row for our con­tin­u­ing cov­er­age of the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Convention.