Olympia Report: State Dems Dream of a Supermajority, and a Defense of the Millionaire's Tax
Happy filing week, when voters around the state learn who has the ambition to lead them as prosecutors, port commissioners, legislators and such. It’s 91 days before the Aug 4 primary.
This cycle is already unique, at least for legislative races, because Democrats are walking around extra light on their feet. The Donald Trump era has been awful for WA Republicans, so much so that most of the hottest races will be between progressive Democrats trying to pick off centrist Democrats. And blue tailwinds are also giving Democrats hope of stretching their map of power in Olympia.
Democrats’ dreams of gaining a supermajority in the Legislature have hovered like sugar plums since a Trump 1.0 backlash gained them seven House seats in 2018. They’ve picked up two more seats since then, giving Dems a 59-39 seat edge. To actually catch those sugar plums, they’d need to flip six more House seats (and retain hard-won seats) and pick up two in the Senate. The former is more likely than the latter. But we hear that polling by individual campaigns suggests that the Trump headwinds are giving Democrats a four or five-point tailwind this election cycle.
Here’s why you should care about this: Supermajority control would grease the skids to put state Constitutional amendments before voters (say, lowering the 60% margin needed to pass school bonds) and to tweak legislative rules that led to the marathon all-night House floor debate on the millionaires tax. And big picture, it would give Democratic leadership more buffer to lose caucus members on tough votes, which could push the left-tilting Legislature further left.
https://www.postalley.org/2026/05/08/olympia-report-state-dems-dream-of-a-supermajority-and-a-defense-of-the-millionaires-tax/