Saldaña, Hasegawa Advance To November Election For King County Council District 2

State Sen. Rebecca Saldaña and Port of Seattle Commissioner Toshiko Grace Hasegawa will face each other in November for the Metropolitan King County Council District 2 seat after emerging as the top two vote-getters in the primary election.

Saldaña finished first with 32,533 votes, or 55.84%, while Hasegawa received 20,352 votes, or 34.93%. Miriam Mboya, a King County employee, finished third with 5,051 votes, or 8.67%. Write-in candidates received 329 votes, or 0.56%.

Under Washington’s top-two primary system, Saldaña and Hasegawa advance to the November general election, setting up a contest between two current elected officials with different backgrounds in state, county and regional government.

Saldaña, who has represented the 37th Legislative District in the state Senate since 2017, enters the general election after securing a majority of the primary vote. She previously served as executive director of Puget Sound Sage and has made housing affordability, wages, transit, child care and behavioral health central to her County Council campaign.

“I’m running for King County Council to build more housing that is affordable at any income, raise wages, improve transit, and make universal childcare a reality,” Saldaña said in her voters’ guide statement. “Making King County a place every family can afford will require transformational change, and that’s exactly what I have been doing in the state senate for a decade.”

Saldaña points to her legislative record on paid family and medical leave, protections for domestic workers, affordable housing and transit investments, as well as tax policies aimed at generating additional revenue from wealthy residents. The daughter of a formerly undocumented Mexican farmworker, she has also made protecting immigrant communities part of her campaign.

Hasegawa, a Garfield High School graduate who lives on Beacon Hill, is seeking to move from the Port of Seattle Commission to the County Council. Her previous experience includes leading a state agency under former Gov. Jay Inslee and working at King County’s Office of Law Enforcement Oversight.

“People across our district are tired of hearing promises made but not seeing them kept,” Hasegawa said in her voters’ guide statement. “The cost of living keeps climbing; housing, childcare, and groceries are too expensive. Our communities pay the price for the lack of state support, as local governments are left underfunded and overstretched.”

Hasegawa’s campaign emphasizes affordable housing, renter protections, public transportation, child care, mental health services, gun violence prevention and government accountability. As a Port commissioner, she points to her work creating a child care center and supporting union jobs, while her experience with the county’s Office of Law Enforcement Oversight informs her positions on police accountability and community-based approaches to preventing gun violence.

Her connection to District 2 is also personal. Hasegawa is raising her children on Beacon Hill in the same home her grandparents purchased after their release from the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Mboya brought a combination of professional and lived experience to the three-way primary. She has worked in King County government for seven years in budgeting, operations, contracting and community partnerships and spoke during the campaign about her own experiences with homelessness, food insecurity and mental health struggles.

“As someone who has experienced homelessness, food insecurity, mental health struggles, and as the daughter of a man who was incarcerated, I understand personally how deeply government systems impact people’s lives,” Mboya said in her voters’ guide statement.

Mboya campaigned on homelessness prevention, behavioral health and addiction treatment, transit access, youth opportunities, economic stability and community-centered public safety.

The November contest now presents District 2 voters with two candidates whose policy priorities frequently intersect but whose experience in government differs.

Saldaña is asking voters to send her to the County Council after nearly a decade of shaping policy in Olympia, while Hasegawa is making the case that her experience at the Port of Seattle and in state and county government offers a different approach to addressing the region’s challenges.

Saldaña begins that contest with a substantial advantage from the primary, receiving nearly 56% of the vote compared with Hasegawa’s roughly 35%. But with Mboya eliminated from the race and the field reduced to two candidates, District 2 voters will make the final choice in November.