It’s time for us to create our thriving home, a place where immigrants and refugees are equal, valued and loved. To get there, we need legislative champions represented everywhere decisions for our communities are made. We are excited to announce our first round of endorsements for the 2024 Primary Elections.
OneAmerica Votes (OAV) makes endorsements with the goal of increasing the power and voice of immigrant and refugee communities in government. To be endorsed by OAV candidates must demonstrate their commitment to work alongside us and deliver on the issues most important to our communities.
OAV Member Leaders and Board members understand what’s at stake. That’s why, as part of our candidate endorsement process, they come together to interview and vote for candidates who are pro-immigrant and will work with us to build a thriving home for immigrants where:
- Families are together and free
- We are all safe
- We all have equal access to opportunity
- We all belong
- We all have our voices heard
- We all have what we need
Endorsement Process
Our endorsement process is led by grassroots leaders from immigrant and refugee communities across Washington State. They interview candidates regarding issues important to their communities, evaluate the candidate responses and make recommendations to the OneAmerica Votes Board of Directors for review and affirmation.
Adriana Lopez, a Member Leader from Vancouver, WA, had the opportunity to join with 20+ immigrant leaders from across Washington to interview candidates running for governor, attorney general, congress and more, to make sure their platforms centered immigrant rights.
She shared this about her experience: “I felt powerful that day because I got to speak directly with candidates about the issues affecting my community. If they tried to distract us with other topics to not respond to our questions, I had the power to pressure them to give a straight answer – are they with us or not? Me sentí poderosa! This is what it feels like to be a member of OAV. To have the opportunity to voice my problems, solutions and opinions to those in power and to feel seen and heard.”
It is pivotal for our Member Leaders to be part of our endorsement process because, as Member Leader Emeka Madu shared, “We are the ones that hold the stories. We are speaking to issues and speaking from experience and points of knowledge. We know what will benefit us and can speak to that ourselves.”
Through this process, candidates who earned our endorsement made commitments to champion a thriving state budget that funds universal access to childcare, multilingual public education, supports for newly arrived migrants, refugees and asylee seekers and unemployment insurance for undocumented workers in WA state.
Our 2024 Primary Election Endorsements
We are excited to announce our first round of endorsements for the 2024 primaries. These candidates have demonstrated their support of Our Thriving Home Platform. We invite you to join us to lift these powerful candidates to elected leadership by supporting their campaigns with your voices, your dollars, your time and your vote! To see the full candidate details with their photo, biographies and link to their website and socials, please click here.
- Emily Randall, U.S. House of Representatives, WA-06
- Pramila Jayapal, U.S. House of Representatives, WA-07
- Bob Ferguson, Washington State Governor
- Manka Dhingra, Washington State Attorney General
- Rebecca Saldaña, Commissioner of Public Lands
- Maria Beltran, State Senator LD 14
- Chelsea Dimas, State Representative LD 14, Position 1
- Jamila Taylor, State Representative LD 30, Position 1
- Emily Alvarado, State Representative LD 34, Position 1
- Joe Fitzgibbon, State Representative LD 34, Position 2
- My-Linh Thai, State Representative LD 41, Position 2
- Darya Farivar, State Representative LD 46, Position 2
- Vandana Slatter, State Representative LD 48, Position 1