Frequently Asked Questions

Sure - a statewide office is difficult for anyone to win but with enough public support, fundraising, and political organizing any campaign is winnable.

I believe that you don't get what you don't ask for and that you can't ask for what's not on your ballot, so there is value in putting a true political alternative on the ballot of every Washingtonian. In my lifetime I have seen the politically impossible become the politically inevitable multiple times. Meaningful change is a long and nonlinear journey and every great political movement begins with vision.

Whether I make it to the general election is ultimately up to the donors, endorsers, political organizers, and voters - I'm simply here to offer the choice.

None of my proposals are impractical or even unprecedented - everything in my platform exists in one form or another somewhere in the world and in most cases in the United States. What is truly impractical is ignoring real problems as they grow worse and more difficult to solve. We need a political and economic system redesigned to meet the needs of today while maintaining flexibility in an ever changing world.

In some cases I propose significant changes to the US economy and the fundamental guarantees of our social contract. While changes like these may have greater impact, nothing about that impact is impractical. Washington is home to at least 13 billionaires. Its GDP-per-capita is higher than even Nordic social democracies like Norway and Sweden. It is home to prosperous land, leading industries, and top research institutions. There really is nothing that we couldn't achieve with sufficient public support. Some changes may require us to pass laws through the legislature, others may have to go to the ballot directly. Others still might require changes to our state's constitution and nearly everything is easier to achieve with federal support. However, every one of these stipulations is entirely politically achievable, it just takes organization, work, and persistence.

One fundamental thing to understand about my platform's design is that each system that is addressed is selected to meet two criteria. 1) The system addressed is a good idea in itself that can meaningfully be said to improve Washington and 2) The system improvement supports other systems in the platform. The results is that the platform can be taken piecemeal but is most powerful when combined into a whole.

All of my proposals are based off of existing movement work and academic research. For more details on every policy in my platform, click through to read that proposal's entire policy page where I go into more details about what my ideas are based on and how they are intended to work.

Last - always be skeptical of the person who exclusively brings problems, concern, and other reasons to not pursue potential solutions without offering alternative solutions of their own that they are willing to hold to the same standard. "Concern trolling" is a commonly weaponized delay tactic that shifts attention and resources away from advancing solutions. Space for critical feedback is important but is useless if not provided constructively.

The platform is under continuous revision and will be adding additional details, citation, and graphics as they are developed.

You've already taken the first step of deciding you want to take action! There are many different ways to become civicly involved and it can be very difficult to navigate at first. Here are a few questions to ask yourself to get started.

• Do you want to take individual action or join with others to take collective action?

• Are you most interested in working at city, state, or federal level?

• Do you prefer to work on issues or work on candidate campaigns?

• Are you more interested in working digitally or in person?

• What ways could political action and political organizing improve your own life or the life of your community?

• Are there others already working on what I am interested in working on?

As for what you see on this website, nearly every one of these issues has groups working on them in Washington state and all around the country and are issues that I work on or at least take a fair amount of personal interest in. This campaign is an invitation to work on all of these issues with me directly not just for the next couple of months, but for as long as it takes to make this entire vision reality.

If you'd like 

The majority of Americans identify as political independents and neither governing party currently holds a net favorable rating in polls. Some take this to suggest that political parties may not be necessary at all and in fact may even be counterproductive in fixing our politics. After all, don't parties just divide us all up into teams and turn everyone against the other rather than together towards common goals?

The kind of systemic change I am running on is a long-term project not nearly as simple as "run for office and win." Every issue I am working to make reality requires a political movement to be built for it. Political parties fill a critical role in organizing a community of voters in such a way that their political interests can make progress over time. They are a critical vehicle for issues, policies, leaders, and movements to develop, network with the community, and one day win electorally. They are a key tool of collective power.

I am looking not just to build my own campaign, I am looking to build collective power across a wide swath of political projects which all share the common feature of being good ideas for the people of Washington. I am looking to make these electoral issues and to raise the standards which people hold their elected government to. I am looking to build institutional support for my policy platform and encourage others to incorporate it into their campaigns. For these purposes, collaborating with a progressive opposition party amplifies the impact of my run considerably whereas running as an independent would see much of the energy generated by my campaign lost after it ends.

Impossible - Washington's top-two "jungle primary" system ensures that the next Governor of Washington will be elected in November on a ballot with two and only two finalists. It will be impossible for any candidate to spoil the election for either finalist. Here's how it works:

• All candidates for the same office appear on the August 6th ballot regardless of political party

• The candidates who receive the most and second most votes appear on November ballots

• Voters elect the next governor in a head-to-head vote - since there are only two options the one with more votes by definition wins "a majority"

Because the first election is multi-winner and the second election is head-to-head, there is no genuine fear of a third, fourth, or fifth place candidate to change who the top two are in the general election or who ends up winning the general.

However, the vast majority of voters participate only in the general election and therefore are only given two candidates to consider. This final vote does not capture the votes of people who support neither candidate and does not allow anyone to express their preferences beyond two choices. Additionally, the consolidation of most voters into an election which only allows two candidates makes it difficult for smaller alternative parties to find supporters and grow. A superior system would have the following features:

• Voters may rank or score as many candidates as they like to fully express their preferences

• A binding "none of the above" option would be required on every ballot

• Automatic runoffs would be possible and would eliminate the need for primaries and runoff elections as voter preference can be retabulated using ranks/scores from their original ballots.

For more information about the reforms I propose to make Washington state a more representative and effective democracy read my page on democracy expansion & reform.