Candidates in one of the most expensive races in Washington have debated and had candidate forums in the final weeks before the election.
Combined, they have raised more than $1.4 million running to represent the 26th Legislative District in the state Senate.
Emily Randall is the Democratic incumbent who was elected to the state Senate in November 2018.
Her opponent is Republican Jesse Young. Young currently holds a seat in the state House, representing the 26th District. Spencer Hutchins (R) and Adison Richards (D) are running against each other for what will be Young’s former House seat.
District 26 includes portions of Kitsap County, including Bremerton and Port Orchard, south to Gig Harbor and Lakebay in Pierce County.
It’s one of several key state Senate races this year that could possibly change which party is in control, The Olympian reported.
Young and his team did not respond to The Gateway’s requests for an interview.
His campaign website says Young grew up on the other side of the bridge in the Hilltop neighborhood of Tacoma.
He was elected to the House in 2014.
If elected to the state Senate, his priorities include the economy and local job growth, small business support and to control spending, according to his website.
Another priority for Young is “supporting, respecting, and re-funding law enforcement,” according to his website.
He also wants to reduce the cost of car tabs and fund road maintenance, the website says.
He sees his effort to freeze the Tacoma Narrows Bridge toll “as his most notable victory,” during his time in the House, according to his website.
Young made headlines in 2017 for his alleged mistreatment of staffers, including “screaming fits,” The News Tribune reported. Young denied the allegations.
He has also denied spreading misinformation related to COVID-19. In January 2021 protesters gathered at a state Board of Health meeting, following a false rumor that state officials were considering forced quarantine facilities for people who didn’t get vaccinated. In a YouTube video posted two days before the meeting, Young said that it could “set the stage” for “greater detainment,” The News Tribune reported.
Public Disclosure Commission records show Young has raised $686,759.88.
Additional resources for information about Jesse Young:
Randall, who turns 37 this month, grew up on the Kitsap Peninsula and lives in Bremerton.
She’s been serving the community she grew up in for the past four years, and hopes to continue doing so.
“It’s been such an honor to serve and be a voice for the district I grew up in,” Randall told the Gateway. “I grew up in a community of neighbors that really looked out for each other and wanted to make life better for each other. I knew that giving back to it was important to me.”
Two personal issues for Randall are making progress toward affordable education and access to healthcare, she said.
She learned the importance of education early on while growing up. She watched her father who worked at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard forced to change occupations due to knee injuries. People were surpassing him in the business who had college degrees.
“What we really need to focus on is the huge number of students that don’t even know whether or not they qualify for financial aid,” Randall said.
Due to Washington’s low FASFA completion rate, she worries students might be making post high school decisions without all the information they could have.
She wants to make sure students have the tools to make those decisions, she said.
Randall grew up with a sibling with disabilities, which sparked early activism in her. She advocated for her middle school bus to park in front of the wheelchair ramp at her middle school.
“That really impacted my life as I saw the barriers that existed for our neighbors with disabilities,” she said.
When she first entered the Legislature, she established a universal health care work group to figure out what the best steps would be to cover the half a million Washingtonians who don’t have meaningful health care coverage and lower costs to families who do have insurance but are afraid to use it, she said.
“I passed the Universal Health Care Commission which is a permanent commission and it’s been called some of the strongest universal health care policy to be passed in any state in the last 10 years by Harvard economists and we’re working on increasing Medicaid rates,” she said.
She believes there is still more to do.
“We’ve got provider shortages in a lot of regions of the state including here in the 26th,” she said. “I think expanding higher education access is so connected with meeting our provider shortage head on.”
Randall said she wants to ensure abortion remains legal and accessible for all in Washington.
“We should have the freedom to choose what’s right for us,” she said.
If elected she said she wants to focus on the issues people are facing in the 26th District.
“Neighbors are struggling,” she said. “Families are worried about rising prices and how they’re going to ensure that their kids can build the dreams they have at night.”
Moving forward she wants to connect with neighbors to pass policies that make sure that “the budget includes investment in our community, to keep us safe, to keep us healthy, and to give us the tools that we need to thrive,” Randall said.
Public Disclosure Commission records show Randall has raised $889,104.23
Additional resources for information about Emily Randall:
Event organizers surveyed residents in the 26th District who identified issues that are important to them. Each candidate was given a chance to respond to the issues identified.
Inflation was identified as being the most important issue to voters. The debate moderator asked both candidates “how they plan to help families absorb the rising cost of living?”
This was also the biggest concern Randall and her team heard as they knocked on residents’ doors for district input during her campaign.
“One of the policies that we’ve already passed and just finally funded this year is the working families tax credit that helps to flip our upside-down tax code,” Randall said. “It puts a higher amount of pressure on the lowest-income Washingtonians and continuing to expand programs like that is incredibly important.”
The solution is “quite simple,” Young said. “I would move to repeal the gas tax that’s coming in January.”
“We should never put that type of tax burden on a struggling working-class economy when the economy is taking the inflationary hit that it is right now,” Young said.
Other issues identified by the survey were crime, democracy and the environment.
Randall said she believes in making sure law enforcement has the tools they need to pursue individuals committing violent crimes.
“I’m proud to be endorsed by our Kitsap County Sheriff John Gese and I’ve worked with law enforcement and been on countless ride-alongs for hours, trying to best understand what the tools are that we need to address rising crime,” Randall said. “The reason I voted for the first repeal of high-speed chases, was because the data shows us that more often than not, they lead to bystander deaths. Like the deaths of two of my colleagues’ parents who died in a police car chase as bystanders. We have more to do and I’ve been talking to the fraternal order of police and to the sheriff’s officers about what the right solution is.”
If elected, Young said he wants to repeal the bill that limited police pursuits in the state.
Young is referring House Bill 1054, a 2021 law that limits the use of tear gas, bans the use of chokeholds and neck restraints and restricts vehicle pursuits to only when police officers have probable cause related to a violent crime or certain other offenses.
Young and Randall also participated in a candidate forum run by the Key Peninsula Council on Oct. 13, with candidates from other races in the 26th District.
All candidates were asked to keep their comments about their “own views and plans,” Gig Harbor Now reported, and Young went on to accuse Randall of not supporting law enforcement.
The moderator signaled to Young that he needed to hand over the microphone, but Young said: “No, I’m not giving up the mic, you don’t have the right to take the mic,” and the moderator let him finish, Gig Harbor Now reported.
Aspen Shumpert is the reporter for The Peninsula Gateway. She grew up in Tacoma and graduated from Washington State University in May 2022. She started working at The News Tribune in March 2022.
