Washington WA-10 House2020

As recruitment chair for the DCCC during the 2018 cycle, Rep. Denny Heck played an understated but integral role in helping Democrats take back the House majority. But after losing a spirited race for DCCC chair to Rep. Cheri Bustos at the outset of the 2020 cycle, Heck is retiring. This Olympia and Tacoma area seat voted for Hillary Clinton 51 percent to 40 percent in 2016, so it's unlikely to be a GOP target.

There are four serious Democratic contenders who have announced for the August 4 top-two primary: former Tacoma Mayor Marilyn Strickland, state Rep. Beth Doglio, former state Rep. Kristine Reeves and former Heck district director Phil Gardner. In the absence of a standout contender among the nine Republicans who filed, it's possible — perhaps even probable — two Democrats will advance to the November ballot.

Strickland ($149,000 on hand), who is both Korean-American and African-American, served as Tacoma mayor before terming out in 2017 and becoming the CEO of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce. She has the backing of former Govs. Chris Gregoire and Gary Locke and is regarded as a pro-business moderate. Neither she nor Reeves live in the 10th CD, which is only six percent African-American and six percent Asian.

Reeves ($200,000), who grew up homeless and in foster care, will rely on her personal story. She worked as a veterans affairs staffer for Sen. Patty Murray before defeating an incumbent Republican for a Tacoma-area state House seat in 2016, becoming the first African-American elected to the state House in nearly two decades. She entered the race with an endorsement from next-door Rep. Adam Smith (WA-10).

Doglio ($219,000) was elected to an Olympia area state House seat in 2016 and when not in session serves as the head of Climate Solutions, a clean energy nonprofit. A former field organizer for NARAL, she'll run as a progressive activist endorsed by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (WA-07) and try to consolidate votes in Olympia, which makes up about a third of the 10th CD's Democratic vote, against the Tacoma-area "carpetbaggers."

Gardner ($66,000), 28, is vying to be Washington's first LGBTQ member of Congress. He graduated from George Washington University while serving as Heck's communications director and briefly started a campaign consulting firm. He's gotten to know the district intimately serving alongside Heck since 2013, but Heck is likely to stay neutral in the contest and Gardner will need to raise more money to be viable.

One local Democrat wonders whether Republicans could attempt to "steal" the seat by trying to prop up two candidates to win November runoff slots against a fractured Democratic field, but it's unlikely Republicans would invest in such a troublesome scheme less than a year before the next redistricting cycle. Doglio may be an early frontrunner to make the November top two, with the second slot up for grabs.