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Hong Thi Tran was a candidate in the Washington Democratic Party primary election for the United States Senate in 2006, challenging incumbent Maria Cantwell. Tran received more than 5% of the Democratic vote, and her differing views from those of Maria Cantwell (on the Iraq War in particular) drew the attention of at least one political commentator in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and a commentator in the Congressional Quarterly's online web site.

Biography

Tran's family fled Saigon, Vietnam for the in the spring of 1975. Tran earned a Bachelor of Arts from Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia in 1988, and a Juris Doctorate in 1992 from the University of Utah. Until 2004, Tran worked at the Northwest Justice Project in Seattle.

2006 Election

Tran, according to her campaign website and media interviews, entered the race for the Democratic nomination for US Senate due to her opposition to the presence of US troops in Iraq, free trade agreements NAFTA and CAFTA, and the USA PATRIOT Act, all of which incumbent Senator Maria Cantwell had voted in favor of. After Mark Wilson, a fellow anti-Iraq War candidate, dropped out of the primary, endorsed Cantwell, and accepted a position on her campaign staff as "outreach coordinator" with a salary of $8,000 per month, Tran's campaign began receiving more attention, as she was the only anti-war Democratic candidate left in the primary at that time. One day later, Tran was contacted by Del LaMagna (a progressive activist and organizer who himself had been hired by the Cantwell campaign the day before Wilson) about joining the Cantwell campaign. Based on the context of the call, Tran interpreted this to be a job offer, which she declined. These events caused political commentators, like one in each of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and The Washington Times, to surmise that this was an attempt by the Cantwell campaign to silence the anti-Iraq War opposition in her party.

In an interview with KUOW, a Seattle NPR affiliate, Tran noted Cantwell's avoidance of debates and challenged Cantwell to debate with her. Tran criticized Cantwell for not being most electable Democratic candidate because she believes Cantwell has divided the party. Tran speculated that Cantwell had alienated the progressive portion of the state to the extent that many will either stay home or vote for a third party candidate during the general election. Despite Tran's harsh criticism of Senator Cantwell, Tran said that if she loses, she will vote for the Democratic nominee in the general election because she wanted her "vote to count". In the September 19 edition of The Washington Times, Tran was quoted as saying that if she lost in the primary she would "certainly not" endorse Cantwell.

Tran's campaign press releases and small, progressive media outlets that supported Tran highlighted the lack of support provided to Tran by the state Democratic party leadership, such as restricting her access to the party's voter database and refusing to let her bring campaign signs into a Coordinated Campaign event at Whittier Elementary. Tran claimed that the party leadership was preventing the distribution of information about her campaign to Democratic voters and PCO's in an attempt to control the primary results; party chair Dwight Pelz and spokesman Kelly Steele claimed that her campaign didn't have enough resources to utilize the information in the voter database. Despite these differences with the party leadership, Tran was able to win the sole endorsement of Cantwell's home district, the 32nd Legislative District, and shared endorsements with Cantwell in three other legislative districts, the 40th, 25th, and 26th LDs.. As 25th DistrictVice Chairman Jim Morrell of Tacoma said in regards to his districts shared endorsement of Cantwell and Tran, "it wasn't a slap against Cantwell, but also it was kind of a feel-good vote, in that at least (people thought) 'I've said something about what's going on in Iraq' and stuff. It wasn't even about 'we shouldn't be there' but rather about how (the war) has been handled."

Notably, the overwhelming majority of Legislative Districts did not endorse Tran, and, in the Democratic primary, the voters in Legislative Districts across Washington overwhelmingly voted for Cantwell, who received 91% of the vote, and not for Tran, who received less than 5% of the vote.

See also

Washington United States Senate election, 2006

External links

• Campaign Web Site

References

1. "2006 Primary Election Results - U.S. Senator". Washington Secretary of State. Retrieved 2006-09-22.
2. Jean Chemnick (2006-08-17). "Dems Unhappy With Sen. Cantwell Have an Option in Tran". CQPolitics.com. Retrieved 2006-09-22. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
3. ^ Neil Modie (2006-09-16). "Senate race has national echoes". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Retrieved 2006-09-22. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
4. Cite error: The named reference campaign site was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
5. ^ "Hong Tran, Democrat for U.S. Senate". KUOW. 2006-07-11. Retrieved 2006-09-22. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
6. Jean Chemnick (2006-08-17). "The CQPolitics Interview: Hong Tran (Wash. Senate)". CQPolitics.com. Retrieved 2006-09-22. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
7. David Postman (2006-07-09). "Cantwell's primary foe turns friend". Seattle Times. Retrieved 2006-09-22. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
8. Neil Modie (2006-07-12). "Last Cantwell rival believes campaign offered job to end all opposition". Seattle P-I. Retrieved 2006-09-22. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
9. Donald Lambro (2006-07-24). "Washington Senatorial Cliffhanger". The Washington Times. Retrieved 2006-09-22. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
10. Robert L. Jamieson Jr. (2006-07-11). "Do hires make her Maria, Queen of Smarts?". Seattle P-I. Retrieved 2006-09-22. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
11. Cite error: The named reference deserves to lose was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
12. Josh Feit (2006-06-07). "Crashing the Party". The Stranger. Retrieved 2006-09-22. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

• Vietnamese Americans
• 2006 United States Congressional election candidates