SAN FRANCISCO (Diya TV) — Indian-American Pramila Jayapal defeated Brady Walkinshaw Tuesday in Washington’s 7th Congressional District.
By winning the seat occupied since 1988 by retiring U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott, Jayapal becomes the first Indian-American woman elected to Congress.
The 52-year-old state senator, whose campaign carried the endorsement of former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, had 57 percent in Tuesday returns in the Seattle-area clash featuring two Democrats. Both candidates referenced the U.S. presidential contest Tuesday night. Jayapal said the result of her race means the 7th District can be “a light in the darkness” if Donald Trump emerged triumphant.
“If our worst fears are realized, we will be on the defense as of tomorrow,” she told supporters. “We will have to fight for social justice as never before.”
Walkinshaw said he and Jayapal share “a profound amount in common and as we look where our country may be headed, that’s where my concerns are,” after his defeat. Jayapal finished first among nine candidates in August’s top-two primary election with 42 percent. Walkinshaw, who would have been Washington’s first openly gay congressperson, narrowly finished second with 21 percent.
Her time as a state senator witnessed her sponsor legislation to raise the minimum wage, introduce a bill for free community college and advance voting rights. Even in a chamber controlled by Republicans where she served in the minority, she was able to work across the aisle and pass important legislation to invest millions of dollars into pre-apprenticeship programs for women and people of color to get good jobs in the transportation sector, increase access to contraceptives for low-income women on Medicaid, make Washington state the first state that will test our untested rape kits and increase access to higher education and small business development assistance in her district.
Just before her August primary, then-Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders declared, “When you think of the political revolution, I want you to think about Pramila.”
