Kristine Reeves knows firsthand what public investment in people can accomplish, because it rebuilt her own life. Raised in Moses Lake by a single mother who struggled with addiction, she moved in and out of foster care and experienced homelessness as a child, leaning on Head Start, food stamps, and the public educators who saw her potential. She became the first in her family to graduate from college, earning a bachelor’s in political science from Washington State University and a master’s in organizational leadership from Gonzaga. She built a career in public service before ever running for office, advising international students at higher-education institutions, directing regional and veterans’ work for U.S. Senator Patty Murray, and spending more than six years at the Washington Department of Commerce as Director of the Military and Defense Sector, where she secured millions in federal grants and helped hundreds of small defense-sector businesses weather Pentagon downsizing.

Reeves first won her Federal Way seat in 2016, becoming the first African American woman elected to the Washington House in eighteen years, then stepped away in 2019 to run for Congress before reclaiming the 30th District seat in 2022. Now in her third term, she chairs the House Agriculture & Natural Resources Committee, serves on the House Education Committee, and has led the Legislative Black Caucus. Over her tenure, she has helped advance some of the state’s signature policies: the nation’s paid family and medical leave program, the country’s first long-term care benefit to help seniors age at home, the Career Connect apprenticeship initiative linking students to on-the-job training, expanded childcare access for working families, and the state’s early environmental justice work. As chair, she has pushed bipartisan solutions on food security, water and soil health, and rural resilience while carrying her classroom-first focus into education policy.

What ties her record together is a conviction rooted in her own story: that strong schools, economic stability, and a livable environment shouldn’t depend on the circumstances a child is born into. She campaigns on an open door, an open mind, and a proven record of results, and she governs like someone who remembers exactly what it takes to break a cycle of poverty—and refuses to pull the ladder up behind her.

*Endorsements include the Washington State Labor Council, SEIU, UFCW 3000, Teamsters 117, AFSCME, the Washington State Nurses Association, the King County and 30th District Democrats, Hilary Franz, Mike Pellicciotti, Dave Upthegrove, and Auburn Mayor Nancy Backus, and editorial endorsements from The Seattle Times and The Stranger.

*2024 Election Cycle

Lauren Davis has a real knack for solving hard problems. Before she ever held office, she was the citizen co-sponsor behind 2016’s Ricky’s Law, which built the state’s first crisis-treatment system for people with life-threatening addiction. She helped found Forefront Suicide Prevention, worked at the Gates Foundation, and was a Fulbright fellow in Ghana before bringing that expertise to Olympia.

In the legislature she helped launch Washington’s 988 crisis line and created the Recovery Navigator program, steering serious money into behavioral health. This year she passed legislation supporting children and youth behavioral health on a 94-to-0 vote, and after a man died in the Lynnwood jail, she used her local relationships to replace jail beds with a behavioral-health crisis center.

Davis builds bipartisan support for her bills and digs into the details of state contracts to make programs actually work. She’s tireless, and she knows this work cold. The 32nd should send her back.

Endorsements include The Seattle Times, The Everett Herald, the Washington Education Association, the Alliance for Gun Responsibility, the Children’s Campaign Fund, Planned Parenthood Votes, NARAL Pro-Choice Washington, EMILY’s List, and the 32nd District Democrats.

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.

Marko Liias is a lifelong Washingtonian, born and raised in the same Snohomish County neighborhoods he now represents in the state Senate. The first in his family to attend college, he earned a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University, a master’s from the University of Washington, and completed an executive program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government before returning home to build a life in public service. He managed a small family-owned construction business, taught as associate faculty at Everett Community College, and won a seat on the Mukilteo City Council in 2006. Two years later, he was appointed to the state House of Representatives, launching a legislative career that has now spanned nearly two decades.

Appointed to the Senate in 2014 and re-elected by widening margins ever since, Liias chairs the Senate Transportation Committee, where he authored the landmark 2022 Move Ahead Washington package—a nearly $17 billion, 16-year investment in the state’s roads, bridges, and transit. He returned to that work in 2026, negotiating a bipartisan supplemental transportation budget with Republican Senator Curtis King that steered $1.5 billion toward preservation and maintenance without raising taxes. As co-chair of the LGBTQ Caucus and one of Washington’s first openly gay legislators, Liias has been a leading voice for equality, championing the 2021 Gender Affirming Care Act, the state’s ban on conversion therapy, and protections for transgender students. He has fought to make college more affordable through the Student Loan Bill of Rights, defended the Climate Commitment Act, and built a record recognized with a 100% environmental voting score.

What ties Liias’s record together is a conviction that government should work for everyone—the commuter stuck in traffic, the student buried in debt, the family that just wants to be treated with dignity. Pragmatic enough to cut deals across the aisle and principled enough to lead on the issues others avoid, he brings a rare combination of ambition and follow-through to Olympia. For the people of the 21st District, that has meant a senator who shows up, delivers, and keeps his promises.

Endorsements include the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, District Lodge 751.

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.

Michael Shepard has a track record of getting big things built. Across three terms as a Port of Bellingham commissioner, elected countywide, he’s worked with cities, tribes, and local industry to grow the economy and bring in good jobs.

He brought the Bellingham Shipping Terminal back to life, landed nearly $20 million in federal money for rail access, and got the stalled Waterfront District moving again, including the Millworks affordable-housing project. He negotiated a landmark sovereignty agreement with the Lummi Nation Chairman and set the port on a path to net-zero emissions.

Shepard is running on the cost of living, affordable housing, schools, and local jobs, and he’s spent years teaching at Western. Retiring Senator Sharon Shewmake is backing him, along with County Executive Satpal Sidhu, Sheriff Donnell Tanksley, and Lummi Nation Chairman Tony Hillaire.

Endorsements also include former Governor Jay Inslee, Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen, Deputy Majority Leader Manka Dhingra, State Senator Liz Lovelett, and 42nd District Representatives Alicia Rule and Joe Timmons.