The Washington Community Alliance (WCA) recently released its annually updated interactive data set on the demographics of Washington’s local elected officials. The data set identifies each representative by name, position in office, race/ethnicity, and gender, as well as comparing the racial demographics of elected officials to those of the populations they serve. The new data indicates that Washington’s Legislature became more diverse after the 2022 midterm elections. However, legislative bodies are still unrepresentative, at 81% white and 57.1% male, compared to statewide demographics of 63.7% white.
South End voters are not divided by race, but recent trendlines are
by Andrew Hong
South Seattle is a unique and important part of the state to understand. We are the most diverse part of the state, with many neighborhoods being over three-quarters People of Color. However, our community’s needs and an understanding of our communities are often discarded. That includes our politics. Most political analyses of Washington State gloss over Communities of Color, and the analyses that do dive into BIPOC communities often lump all Communities of Color together into one bucket. However, Bellevue Communities of Color are much different from Central Washington Communities of Color which are much different from South End Communities of Color.
