Adison Richards grew up on the Kitsap Peninsula, graduated from Peninsula High School in Gig Harbor where his mother taught, and worked his father’s landscaping business before college. As a nonprofit attorney, he served survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking at the Northwest Justice Project, then practiced housing law at Kitsap Legal Services — work with families struggling to keep up with rent and mortgages that directly shaped his focus on affordability and public safety. He won the 26th District seat in 2024 after falling just 756 votes short in 2022, one of the closest legislative races in the state.

That firsthand experience drives a record built around cost of living, housing, and making government work at the local level. As Vice Chair of the House Housing Committee — and a member of the Agriculture & Natural Resources and Transportation committees — he has focused on bills with a direct nexus to his district, from streamlining state permitting to clearing derelict vessels from local waters. Public safety has been a priority since day one: he has fought to direct state dollars to county law enforcement and public defense, and crossed the aisle to work with Republican Sen. Nikki Torres to fund more public defenders. He backs affordable housing and homelessness solutions, environmental protection, public education, and reproductive freedom — while choosing bipartisan results over party-line fights.

Richards treats the job as a two-year contract up for review: a legislator who shows up, listens, and ties his work to what constituents are actually asking for. Rooted in the community he grew up in and pragmatic about serving a genuine swing district, he has earned another term in the 26th.

Endorsements include U.S. Rep. Emily Randall, Pierce County Executive Ryan Mello, Kitsap County Prosecutor Chad Enright, Bremerton Mayor Greg Wheeler, Gig Harbor Mayor Mary Barber, Port Orchard Mayor Rob Putaansuu, the 26th District and Kitsap County Democrats, AFT Washington, the Washington Council of Police & Sheriffs (WACOPS), and the Alliance for Gun Responsibility.

Dan Bronoske has spent his entire life in Pierce County, and his career reads like a résumé built for public service. He served six years in the Washington Army National Guard and spent 23 years as a firefighter before voters sent him to Olympia in 2020 to represent the 28th Legislative District. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Eastern Oregon University and a Master of Public Administration from the University of Washington. He has lived in the district his whole adult life — in Fircrest, Steilacoom, and now Lakewood, where he lives with his spouse and their dog.

In the House, Bronoske has built a record around the practical concerns that shape everyday life in South Pierce County. He chairs the House Health Care & Wellness Committee, where he has worked to expand access and drive down costs, championing the state’s cap on insulin at $35 for a 30-day supply and pushing to steer patients toward appropriate primary care rather than the emergency room. He has pressed to make housing more attainable by streamlining permitting and allowing a wider range of housing types, worked to improve childcare affordability and wages for childcare workers, and approached public safety through the eyes of a first responder, backing investments in officer training while pairing them with substance-use and mental health resources and a commitment to accountability. His broader agenda has centered on stronger schools, better-paying jobs, lower healthcare costs, and support for seniors and the most vulnerable.

What ties it together is a straightforward, service-first ethos rooted in decades spent answering calls and showing up for his neighbors. Bronoske frames his work in Olympia as an extension of the same job he held as a firefighter, supporting the community at every level and being there when people need help. Now seeking re-election, he continues to run on that record of steady, results-oriented work for the district he has called home his entire life.

Endorsements include U.S. Senator Patty Murray, Lieutenant Governor Denny Heck, Congressman Derek Kilmer, Congresswoman Marilyn Strickland, House Speaker Laurie Jinkins, Rep. Mari Leavitt, Sen. T’wina Nobles, and firefighter unions across the state

Deb Krishnadasan came up through the schools, not the party ladder. A PTA volunteer who became a Peninsula School District board member and president, she led the community campaign that finally delivered six new schools after decades of failed attempts. Appointed to the Senate in 2024, she won a full-fledged battle for the seat last November, prevailing in the closest legislative race in Washington against a six-term Republican.

In Olympia she has been laser-focused on lowering costs. Her bill expanding the property tax relief program, signed this spring, extends help to tens of thousands of seniors, people with disabilities, and disabled veterans so they can stay in their homes. She voted to establish energy-bill assistance for low-income families, proposed the first sales tax cut in Washington in over 40 years, and voted against the gas tax hike. Every bill she has passed drew support from both parties.

The 26th is a true swing district, and it rewards exactly what Krishnadasan delivers: independence, pragmatism, and results. She’s earned a full term.

Endorsements include the Washington State Labor Council, the Association of Washington Business, the Washington Education Association, Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates, the Alliance for Gun Responsibility, SEIU 775, UFCW 3000, the Sierra Club, and the Washington Food Industry Association.

Jake Fey has represented the 27th District since 2013, and he came to Olympia after a long career built around energy, transit, and public service. He directed Washington State University’s alternative-energy and energy-efficiency program for nearly two decades, served on the Sound Transit and Pierce Transit boards and the Pierce County public health board, and chaired clean-air efforts at the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency. Before the Legislature, he served on the Tacoma City Council and as the city’s Deputy Mayor.

That background shows up in a record defined by big, durable investments. As Chair of the House Transportation Committee, he led negotiations to pass Move Ahead Washington in 2022, a historic 16-year, $16 billion package pairing infrastructure preservation with record funding for transit, hybrid-electric ferries, and active transportation like walking and biking. He drove the earlier Connecting Washington package that brought light rail to Tacoma, sponsored groundbreaking climate and clean-energy laws targeting greenhouse gas emissions and holding oil-spill polluters accountable, and wrote the Homeless Student Stability and Opportunity Gap Act to support students without stable housing. He has also championed prison-to-postsecondary education pathways to cut recidivism and measures to expand affordable childcare for working families.

Fey takes the long view on the work of governing, making decisions today that shape what gets left to the next generation, and he has spent his career mentoring young people through the Boys and Girls Club, First Place for Children, and Big Brothers Big Sisters. He’s a steady, results-driven legislator who has earned another term in the 27th.

Endorsements include House Speaker Laurie Jinkins, Sen. Yasmin Trudeau, Tacoma Mayor Victoria Woodards, the Washington State Labor Council, Washington Conservation Action, the Washington Education Association PAC, the Alliance for Gun Responsibility, Transportation for Washington, UFCW 3000, and the Washington State Nurses Association.

Chanjolee “Joe” Bushnell is Tacoma’s Deputy Mayor, running for the House in the 29th Legislative District. A lifelong Tacoman and Marine Corps combat veteran, he was elected to the city council in 2021 as Washington State’s first Cambodian-American councilmember and was chosen by his colleagues to serve as Deputy Mayor for 2026.

His record is grounded in local governance and community service. A longtime small-business advocate, he worked on behalf of local businesses through the Washington Hospitality Association in Pierce County and served as a Travel Tacoma board member and on the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department Food Advisory Board. Before his council tenure, he chaired the South Tacoma Neighborhood Council and volunteered with neighborhood cleanups, tree-planting projects, and Toys for Tots. His legislative platform centers on three priorities: affordability for working families squeezed by rising costs, universal healthcare so no family loses coverage based on employer or income, and better-resourced community safety through mental health and addiction treatment.

Bushnell casts himself as a servant leader who believes the highest-impact change happens at the local level and wants to carry that bottom-up orientation to Olympia. He’s a pragmatic local official with a commanding electoral base in his district and a coalition that stretches across the Democratic establishment, labor, and business.

Endorsements include Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, State Auditor Pat McCarthy, Tacoma Mayor Anders Ibsen, former Mayor Victoria Woodards, State Representatives Jake Fey and Dan Bronoske, a near-complete slate of current and former Tacoma councilmembers, the Tacoma firefighters (IAFF Local 31) and police (IUPA Local 6), Teamsters Local 117, the Tacoma-Pierce County Association of Realtors, VoteVets, and New Politics.

Mari Leavitt was raised in a military family and built a career in education and human services before running for office, working as a postsecondary administrator at Pierce College, Tacoma Community College, Evergreen State College, and the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, and later as Deputy Director of Pierce County Human Services, where she helped run programs spanning affordable housing, homelessness, aging and long-term care, behavioral health, early learning, and job training. A longtime University Place resident of more than three decades, she holds a doctorate in community college leadership from Oregon State University and co-owns a local orthodontics practice with her husband, with whom she raises several children, including two adopted from foster care.

In Olympia, Leavitt has channeled that background into a record built around housing, veterans, education, and public safety. She serves as Vice Chair of the House Housing Committee and sits on the Postsecondary Education and Workforce, Capital Budget, and Rules committees, and she Co-Chairs the Joint Committee on Military and Veterans Affairs, sponsoring legislation on pay equity for the National Guard, occupational licensing for veterans and military spouses, and support services for service members and their families. Her housing work has expanded affordable options and directed resources toward homelessness and survivors of trafficking, while her health-related bills have broadened access to behavioral health care, responded to the opioid crisis, and protected health workers from workplace violence.

What ties Leavitt’s work together is a practical, service-first approach rooted in the communities she has called home for more than thirty years. She frames her mission around economic security for working families, accessible healthcare, safe housing, quality public education from early learning through apprenticeship, and thriving small businesses, and her national roles through the Council of State Governments and the National Conference of State Legislatures reflect a legislator increasingly sought out for her expertise. For voters across Lakewood, University Place, Fircrest, DuPont, Steilacoom, and the Joint Base Lewis-McChord community, she offers the steady, detail-oriented advocacy of someone who has spent her career helping families navigate the systems she now helps write.

Endorsements include Gov. Bob Ferguson, Lt. Gov. Denny Heck, Attorney General Nick Brown, Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, Treasurer Mike Pellicciotti, Superintendent Chris Reykdal, Auditor Pat McCarthy, Insurance Commissioner Patty Kuderer, Reps. Adam Smith and Marilyn Strickland, Pierce County Executive Ryan Mello, Planned Parenthood of Washington, the Washington Education Association, the Washington State Labor Council, the Washington State Nurses Association, and the Alliance for Gun Responsibility.

Melanie Morgan has spent her life turning hard-won personal experience into a fight for the communities Olympia too often overlooks. Born in London and raised in international postings before serving in the United States Army, she settled in Pierce County and earned a psychology degree from St. Martin’s University in Lacey. She built a career in housing as a mortgage banker, a safe housing coordinator, and a commissioner on the Pierce County Housing Authority board, having herself experienced homelessness and learned firsthand how narrow the margin between stability and crisis can be. Before winning her House seat in 2018, she served on the Franklin Pierce School Board, where she pressed her colleagues to weigh how every policy would land on families and the wider community.

In the House, Morgan has paired big-picture equity work with concrete wins for working families. She championed Washington’s CROWN Act, banning discrimination based on natural hair, and she led the Legislature in establishing Juneteenth as a state paid holiday. Her signature achievement is the Community Reinvestment Account, a $200 million investment she spearheaded to confront the disproportionate harms of the War on Drugs through homeownership, small-business support, legal services, violence prevention, and reentry programs for the formerly incarcerated. She has advanced tenant protections, including a law letting renters pay move-in fees in installments, fought for equity and diversity in farming and ranching, and even carried the beloved bill, brought to her by fourth-graders in her district, that made the Suciasaurus rex Washington’s official state dinosaur.

What defines Morgan is a conviction that leadership means showing up, listening, and delivering, especially for people who are usually left out of the conversation. A domestic violence and sexual assault advocate and a housing champion since 1997, she treats government not as a distant institution but as a tool for lifting up her neighbors, from students and veterans to renters and small-business owners. She is running for reelection in 2026 on a record of results and a promise to keep building a Washington that is more equitable, more affordable, and more accountable to the communities it serves.

Endorsements include Gov. Bob Ferguson, Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, Sen. T’wina Nobles, Rep. Dan Bronoske, and Franklin Pierce Schools Board Director Alex Davis, AFT Washington, the National Women’s Political Caucus of Washington, the ILWU, and Washington Conservation Action.

Tedd Wetherbee grew up in a large family with an immigrant mother from Nicaragua, raised speaking Spanish and learning early what hard work and resilience actually mean. He started his first small businesses in college, worked with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in his early twenties, and then spent a decade in Lagos, Nigeria, building infrastructure and energy projects, including power systems and solar lighting for underserved communities.

Back home, he built businesses in Washington State that today employ members of this community, and he knows firsthand the pressures on the people who work for him and shop with him. His focus is squarely on the cost of living: practical solutions that bring down everyday costs, help small businesses grow, and make commonsense budget decisions so families can build stable, secure lives here.

Wetherbee isn’t running to build a political career. He’s running to solve problems for the district that gave his family its start, and Position 2 in the 26th would be well served by that.

Endorsements include the 26th Legislative District Democrats, the Pierce County Democrats, Pierce County Executive Ryan Mello, Pierce County Councilmember Marty Campbell, the Environmental Coalition of Pierce County, and former Kitsap County Democrats Chair Hannie Baxter.