I’m not from the Manka Dhingra campaign. These are my own impressions and may not line up with their official messaging.
In case you haven’t been following it, this is a strategically critical race. The WA state Senate is divided 48-48 with the 45th District seat vacant. The party that wins LD-45 will control the state Senate. Imagine the money the Republicans are pouring into this.
So, she’s part of “more Democrats”, but is she part of “better Democrats”? And is she a good candidate at all? Those are the questions I took with me as I researched her candidacy. I have an answer now.
Umm: wow.
I asked direct questions and watched how she handled them from other people. She answered directly showing full understanding of the questions. It was unusual in a political candidate.
To get an idea what she cares about and how she thinks on her feet, I asked her to tell a story about her life or career. The one that she chose was founding a domestic violence prevention organization for the South Asian community here. She talked about the opposition she overcame. Then she mentioned the resistance she got trying to get the local police to learn Crisis Intervention Training. She’s got a spine, and is not afraid to use it in a good cause, and she intelligently picks good causes.
What makes her eyes light up the most? It’s the cases she handled at the prosecutor’s office where she got the court to steer someone into drug or mental health treatment and the offender wound up with a stable job.
Who knows a person’s work best? Their co-workers. I looked and found a couple of people with contacts in the country prosecutor's office where she works. Her colleagues respect her profoundly and are enthusiastic about her candidacy. She's got high competence to go with her gumption and compassion.
It’s not easy to impress me this much.
People, on top of everything else this is a “build the bench” election. She's got the brains and moxie to move on to national office if she wants and we will be lucky to have her.
The link to help out with the campaign (you can do phone banking from anywhere) is act.myngp.com/…
The donations link is act.myngp.com/…
For just reading up, the campaign site is electmanka.com.
Oh, and if the Democrats win the WA state Senate then the entire state government will be blue.