The state’s most crowded race for Congress got even more crowded today.
Democrat Suzan DelBene said today she will make another bid for Congress, this time to succeed U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee in a much-retooled 1st Congressional District. She made the announcement shortly after resigning as director of the state’s Department of Revenue.
DelBene, a Medina resident, lost to Republican Congressman Dave Reichert in the 8th District in 2010.
Redistricting shifted her out of Reichert’s district and into the reconfigured 1st District which stretches north from Medina to the Canadian border. It includes a big swath of Snohomish County east of I-5 as well as rural areas of Whatcom and Skagit counties.
With her much-anticipated entrance, DelBene becomes the seventh Democrat and 10th candidate in this contest.
On the Democratic side, she joins a field with Darcy Burner, who lost to Reichert in 2006 and 2008 in the old 8th District, state Sen. Steve Hobbs, D-Lake Stevens, state Rep. Roger Goodman, former state lawmaker Laura Ruderman, businessman Darshan Rauniyar of Bothell and attorney Andrew Hughes of Edmonds.
Inslee is not running for re-election to Congress so he can run as a Democrat for the governor’s office.
There are three Republicans who have announced for the 1st District — Snohomish County Councilman John Koster, Greg Anders of Bellingham and James Watkins of Kirkland.
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