Women’s March Rallies Supporters to Memorial Park

A Women's March rally drew supporters Saturday to the steps of the Chelan County Courthouse. A panel of speakers urged the crowd to the importance of voting, studying the issues and supporting democrats, and candidates with progressive platforms.

Kelly Anderson was part of the roster of speakers and commented to 560KPQ afterwards. "Here in Wenatchee, we are probably not doing a good enough job acknowledging and supporting our brown and black and indigenous citizens. They often don't have a seat at the table in Wenatchee when we look around to government positions, city, county, statewide positions"

Anderson said when she moved here six or seven years ago, she was "shocked" to see how many Republican candidates were unopposed or faced another GOP candidate on the ballot "What's there to vote for if everyone's a shoe-in? That's not a robust ballot" Anderson believes that's changing and more Democrats running is a good thing.

However, the November General election ballot is still dominated by the GOP in Chelan and Douglas County. Democratic candidate Adrianne Moore, who spoke at the rally, is the challenger in the only local race where a Democrat is facing a GOP candidate, 12th District Republican State Representative Keith Goehner. There is only one local partisan race on the November ballot in Chelan or Douglas County and it pits two GOP candidates for Chelan County Commissioner. In the other local partisan races, the Republican incumbent drew no opposition. The congressional races offer a party choice; 8th District Rep. Kim Schrier (D) and Republican challenger, Jesse Jensen. In the 4th District race, incumbent Dan Newhouse (R) is challenged by a Democrat, Doug McKinley

Anderson said the National Women's March organization requested rallies be held around the country on Saturday but agreed the local turnout was much smaller than crowds at previous Women's March events in Wenatchee typically held in January.