With new chairs, Washington's GOP and Democrats focused on next round of local candidates

Washington's Republicans and Democrats recently chose their state party chairs, who are now focused on establishing the next generation of candidates for local races.

Shasti Conrad is the new chair of the Washington State Democratic Party. She’s the first woman of color to hold the position.

Conrad is not only the first woman of color to lead the Washington State Democrats, but at just 38 years old, she’s also the youngest chair in the organization's history.

“We are ushering this next generation of leadership into the Democratic Party and it feels really great to be leading such an important organization at this time.”

The Washington State Republican party recently re-elected Caleb Heimlich, who has been the chair since 2018. At 37 years old, Heimlich is one of the youngest Republican state party leaders in the country.

Heimlich has been the chair since 2018. He says his number one focus this year is to recruit good people to run for office and train them, so they know how to run campaigns.

He added that there will be a lot of training, and events to encourage people to get active at the local level.

Both Heimlich and Conrad plan to work on supporting candidates running at the local and national levels.

Each of them shared that they have an eye on securing a candidate from their party in Southwest Washington’s 3rd Congressional District in 2024. That district saw a shakeup in 2022 when incumbent Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler was ousted by other GOP candidates from her right in the primary election. Then, Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez won the November election, flipping the district from red to blue.