Jayapal, 49, is a fascinating candidate:

•  She doesn’t live in McDermott’s district.
• She comes to politics from the corporate world, having worked on Wall Street.
• As an Indian and an immigrant, she is likely to identify with many of the “zonians,” the techie transients who have migrated here for jos with Amazon, Microsoft, and their periphery.
• Jayapal may also benefit from  Jim McDermott’s strong interest in India.  The Congressman from Seattle has been an ally of lobbyists from India and may end up working that rich vein in his life post-Congress.
• Jayapal lives in the ninth Congressional District.  Representative Adam Smith holds that seat but it was created by liberal activists to represent “people of color.”    Jayapal, a Senator from the 37th state legislative District, has built a unique coalition across ethnic groups that was seen as preparing her to succeed Smith.
• Though coming out of a Wall Street background, Jayapal has been a close ally of Trotsyite/Socialist Kshama Sawant.  Jayapal  co-sponsored last year’s minimum wage bill with liberal state representative Jessyn Farrell (D-46, North Seattle) and  co-sponsored the ACLU’s body cameras bill to stipulate that camera footage can only be used for police accountability not police work.
• She is widely seen and respected as a constructive progressive Democrat,  operating within the Party rather than claiming to overturn it as has been the mantra of her friend Kshama.
• Jayapal has also  led on very practical issues, such as  the fight to strengthen the state transportation package from an environmental and transit POV.

Other announced candidates include King County council member and former state legislator Joe McDermott and state representative Brady Walkinshaw.

Jayapal will be presumed to be the front runner.  With her relationship to Sawant, is likely to garner the sort of financial backing that unions placed behind Sawant’s campaign for the City Council.  This would undermine both McDermott and Walkinshaw who are running as progressive Democrats.   However, as an ex Wall streeter, Ms. Jayapal  may also uniquely subsume the expected role of establishment candidate if she garners the support of Seattle’s corporate heads.

I wonder what  Satya Nadella thinks? 

Read Josh Feit’s 2014 feature story about Pramila Jayapal in the  Seattle Met