Adam Smith Facing Millennial Challenger From The Left

SEATTLE, WA ― Sarah Smith calls herself a “poor millennial.” Not poor like you should pity her, but poor like she doesn’t have any money. And that’s a core part of why she’s running for Congress against Adam Smith, who has represented Washington’s 9th Congressional District for two decades.

Smith’s main plank: getting corporate money out of politics. Since she has no money, she’s not interested in raising a ton. Untouched by corporate money, she’ll be stronger on progressive priorities in Congress than Adam Smith.

“I’m for debt free education, student debt relief, Medicare for all, I’m anti-war. But none of this is going to happen until we get corporate money out of our political system,” she says.

Smith is not the first Democrat to challenge Adam Smith, but she might be the first progressive with a shot at the general election. The only other candidate running for Adam Smith’s seat is Republican Doug Baseler. Based on past primary results, she could advance past the primary if she can do better than Baseler, who ran in the 2014 and 2016 races.

Bernie Sanders connection

Smith, 30, has been a progressive as long as she can remember, but she never thought she’d run for office. In fact, she was sort of pushed into running against Adam Smith.

In 2016, Smith volunteered and caucused for Bernie Sanders. After Sanders’ campaign ended, his supporters founded a political action committee called Brand New Congress. The goal of the organization is to get candidates elected without corporate money. If enough Brand New Congress candidates get elected, they can form a caucus in Congress to advocate for bigger policy changes. Brand New Congress supports Democrat, Republican, and independent candidates.

Around the time Donald Trump was elected president, BNC put out a call for members to nominate people to run for office. Someone - Smith doesn’t know who - nominated her in early 2017 to run against Adam Smith. BNC screened each candidate, and then reached out and asked if they would run.

“She fit the bill,” BNC Deputy Communications Director Zeynab Day said of Sarah Smith.

Smith hesitated to say yes. But one day her husband asked: If you had to vote right now, would you want to vote for Adam Smith? Her answer, of course, was no. She officially announced her candidacy last spring.

Pit of vipers

Since last spring, Smith has spent time learning how to be a candidate. She attended a workshop with other candidates at the BNC headquarters in Knoxville, Tenn. She’s been knocking doors, making phone calls, and asking local Democratic groups to endorse her.

She’s seen mixed results. At one event, a young girl came up to her and asked to shake her hand. She’s had some good responses while knocking doors in Renton and Kent, where she lives. She’s even had some success in Bellevue, but not on Mercer Island. She described one endorsement meeting with a local Democratic legislative district group as walking into a “pit of vipers.”

“It was his home district, and I knew what I was walking into,” she said. “I just spoke my truth. If they don’t want to hear it, that’s fine.”

When she and her surrogates go door-to-door, Smith says the “we don’t take corporate money” pitch most often gets them in the door. Some also like that she’s affiliated in some way with Sanders.

She might even be appealing to Trump voters. Smith manages a mechanic shop in Renton, and some of her coworkers voted for Trump. Some are single-issue voters (abortion, gun control) and would likely never vote for a progressive. Still, she thinks others might be interested in her message, which differs from mainstream Democrats.

“They laugh when I come to their door,” she says of Trump voters. “But you don’t change people’s minds overnight.”

As far as making it through the primary, Smith has said she’s “done the math.” Looking at past primary results, Republican Baseler earned about a quarter of the vote in 2014 and 2016. Democrat Jesse Wineberry challenged Smith in 2016 and got about 17,000 votes.

The 9th Congressional District's demographics might help Smith. She's the first woman to run for the seat since at least 2008. The district, according to Census figures, has a large millennial population - people ages 24 to 34 are the single largest group about 125,000 out of the total population of 740,000. There are about 130,00 renters in the district who might identify with Sarah Smith's own housing history: she had recently had to move out of Seattle because she and her husband couldn't afford to keep an apartment when their roommates moved out.

In a top-two primary in what’s (allegedly) supposed to be a “blue wave” year for Democrats, Smith might be able to pull enough votes from Baseler and Adam Smith to squeak through - but then she would face an uphill climb in the general election like hiking Mt. Rainier in ski boots.

Entrenched Adam Smith

Smith knows her chance of unseating Adam Smith isn’t great, but in many ways he serves as the perfect foil for her campaign.

Adam Smith has easily won reelection in recent years. His district includes a big swath of traditional Democratic strongholds, he makes frequent in-person appearances at home, and has been very critical of Donald Trump. He’s a comfortable choice if you like politicians like Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

But for anyone who leaned toward Bernie Sanders, Adam Smith has downsides. Smith takes a lot of money from corporations. Some of his biggest donors include Amazon ($10,000 this cycle), T-Mobile ($5,000), Deloitte ($10,000), and Northrup Grumman-owned aerospace defense company Orbital ATK ($9,000).

On his campaign website, Smith says he supports “lowering interest rates on students loans.” Millennials strapped with student loan debt might not respond to that as favorably as Sarah Smith’s proposals to abolish student loan debt and make public universities free.

Adam Smith has been endorsed by Democratic heavies like Barack Obama and U.S. Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell (and as of Monday, Smith still had an endorsement up from disgraced former Seattle mayor Ed Murray). Sarah Smith has significantly fewer endorsements, but hers are from progressive groups like Our Revolution King County and the Olympia chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

No matter what happens this election cycle, Sarah Smith said she’d like her campaign to be a rallying point for poor millennials, or just voters looking for a change. Building a strong coalition now could help if she ever decides to run for statewide office (which she says she’s open to doing).

“We’re trying to make sure our campaign is the epicenter [of progressive organizing],” she says.

“We try to approach everything with optimism and positivity. if we don't walk out of the primary, we' ll walk away feeling we did the best thing we could. People want hope and vision and someone whos going to bring that to the table.”

Photos by Neal McNamara/Patch