32nd District senator faces 2 challengers, including longtime House member

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, July 8, 2026

EVERETT — In the 32nd Legislative District, a Democratic incumbent is facing two challengers, including a longtime state representative from his own party.

Cindy Ryu, who has served in the House for 16 years, announced her plan to run against State Sen. Jesse Salomon, telling the Washington State Standard she believed he was too moderate. Ryu and Salomon face political newcomer Ira McBee, who’s running as a Republican.

The 32nd District encompasses parts of Edmonds, Mountlake Terrace, Lynnwood, Shoreline and a small portion of northern Seattle.

State legislators make $72,494 per year.

The county will mail ballots out July 14. The top two vote-getters will advance to the Nov. 3 general election.

Ira McBee

McBee, 45, is a small-business owner from Esperance, an unincorporated part of Edmonds. As a Republican, he said he’s running to give the 32nd District a choice.

“I’m in the Republican party because they opened a door for me, and I feel like healthy government requires competition and balance,” McBee said. “We need more balance in Washington state to have healthier policies.”

Part of what inspired McBee to run is to make the cost of living more affordable, an issue that he says is directly impacting 32nd District residents.

“I know my family feels it, and my friends, my community, the feeling, the pressure of how expensive it’s getting to live here, and also the frustration of the direction our state is heading,” he said.

His other priorities include government accountability, public safety and education.

He said that the state’s budget challenges stem from the spending side rather than the revenue side. He said he’d want to take an “honest look” at what tax dollars are going toward.

“If Washington was working, everyone would know it, or we’d even feel it,” he said. “We’d feel it on the roads, we’d feel it in our schools, we’d feel it in our paychecks and even how far our paychecks are going.”

For public safety, McBee said he’d want to create policies to help first offenders, and at the same time, he’d want to strengthen penalties for repeat offenders.

“It feels like … there’s a place here to create policies that can help those first-time or early offenders get rehabilitated into contributing members of society,” he said.

McBee said he’d want to address declining public school enrollment, which fell by 9,000 students statewide in the 2025-26 school year, the Seattle Times reported. McBee attributed this to lower educational standards.

“We just have to get back to those basic standards, just ordinary expectations of what our education system should produce,” he said.

McBee does not have any endorsements from elected officials listed on his website.

As of Tuesday, McBee had raised $7,600 for his campaign, according to state filings.

Cindy Ryu

Ryu, 68, has served as a state representative in the 32nd District since 2011. She previously served as a city council member in Shoreline and was selected as mayor in 2008, becoming the first Korean American woman mayor in the country.

She decided to run against Salomon, also a Democrat, because she believes some of his positions are too moderate.

“Instead of complaining and being unhappy about my own senator, I’m doing something about it,” she said.

In her time in the House, Ryu served as chair of the Technology, Economic Development, and Veterans Committee. She said that there wouldn’t always be a place for policies to land when the committee would send them over to the Senate. Some examples, she said, include artificial intelligence and disaster resilience policies.

“I really wished somebody in the Senate would be stepping up to take on these, in my opinion, very interesting and very necessary policy bills, and it wasn’t quite there,” she said.

Ryu’s priorities in the Senate would include affordability, public education, clean energy and investing in local businesses.

On affordability, Ryu supports universal child care, consumer protection and increasing housing supply. To increase housing supply and improve the affordability of housing, Ryu hopes to focus on mixed-income, social housing and streamlining the permitting process.

“Every day that is delayed on the permitting is costing and making that housing more expensive, which means the rent cannot be subsidized as much,” she said.

Ryu would look to find ways to fully fund public education, particularly to retain teachers, hire more counselors and improve public education, she said.

When it comes to the environment, Ryu said she wants to focus on clean energy, especially with data centers. She said she does not support banning all data centers, but is against subsidizing them.

“We should definitely mandate that they look at the bigger picture ecosystem of how much power do they need, what does it mean for the entire grid and what does it mean to the ratepayers,” she said.

Despite what Ryu said will be a difficult budget session next year, Ryu hopes to advocate for investing in local businesses and economic development. She particularly wants to focus on technical support for small businesses, such as protecting them from scams.

Ryu has been endorsed by Washington Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal, State Rep. Strom Peterson and Lynnwood Mayor George Hurst, among other elected officials. She also has endorsements from Snohomish County Democrats, 32nd District Democrats and the Washington State Labor Council, among other organizations.

As of Tuesday, Ryu had raised $167,295 for her campaign, according to state filings.

Jesse Salomon

Salomon, 49, has served in the state Senate since 2019. He previously served on the City Council in Shoreline, where he currently lives.

He said he wants to continue his work “keeping the sovereignty of Washington state intact” while policies change at the federal level. For example, he supported the “millionaire’s tax” last session, which imposed a 9.9% tax on household wages above $1 million per year. He also supported a bill banning federal immigration agents from wearing masks.

“I try to approach legislating as a progressive, but from a practical, strategic point of view,” Salomon said.

His priorities if re-elected would include housing affordability and increasing the income threshold for property tax exemptions for seniors.

He said the state needs to ensure that it’s auditing its spending on housing and homelessness, particularly after an audit found that the King County Regional Homelessness Authority had millions of dollars that couldn’t be accounted for. Some of the homelessness authority’s funding comes from the state.

“We do spend a lot on solving homelessness,” he said. “We do spend a lot on treatment, and I think we need to really go through and have some oversight of these programs to make sure that we’re getting results rather than just spending and hoping.”

Currently, the property tax exemption threshold for seniors in King County is $76,000. In Snohomish County, the threshold is $68,000 and is as low as $38,000 in some counties.

“I want to keep raising that threshold so that seniors, veterans and people with disabilities aren’t taxed out of their homes,” he said.

In the 32nd District specifically, Salomon said mental health is a big issue, particularly on Aurora Avenue in North Seattle.

“I grew up in Seattle, and it’s just not the city that I grew up in,” he said. “The status quo of massive open-air fentanyl use and open theft is just not OK.”

He wants to continue to encourage treatment for drug users through state policy. He also would look to continue the Legislature’s discussion on kratom, a psychoactive supplement sold at convenience stores. Three bills to regulate the substance didn’t make it out of committee last session.

For youth mental health, he wants to require parental permission for children under the age of 16 to use social media.

Another issue facing the 32nd District, Salomon said, is school funding. Last session, he introduced a bill that proposed the state pay for insurance and utilities for schools. The bill didn’t make it out of committee. He would hope to continue that work next session.

Salomon has been endorsed by State Rep. Lauren Davis, Lynnwood Mayor George Hurst and Snohomish County Sheriff Susanna Johnson, among other elected officials. He also has endorsements from the Alliance for Gun Responsibility, the Boeing machinists union and the Washington State Nurses Association, among other organizations.

As of Tuesday, Salomon had raised $141,026 for his campiagn, according to state filings. An additional $18,094 carried over from his last campaign.

Jenna Peterson: 425-339-3486; jenna.peterson@heraldnet.com; X: @jennarpetersonn.