Washington's 1st Congressional District - Pre-2012 Redistricting History

Pre-2012 Redistricting History

Prior to the 2012 redistricting, the district encompassed part of Northwest Seattle and largely suburban areas north and east of Seattle including Shoreline, Edmonds, Lynnwood, Mountlake Terrace, Bothell, Kirkland and Redmond as well as Bainbridge Island and part of the Kitsap Peninsula. Until March 20, 2012, it was represented by Democrat Jay Inslee from Bainbridge Island. Inslee resigned to focus on his run for Governor of the state; the seat will remain vacant until a special election that will coincide with the November 2012 general election.

The former House seat of powerful U.S. Senator Warren G. Magnuson, the district was a swing district throughout much of the 1990s, changing hands and parties three times in four elections. Before the election of future U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell in 1992, the district had been in Republican hands for 40 years (and 42 of the previous 46 years). Since the 1998 election, when Inslee was first elected, the growing Democratic trend in the Seattle area enabled him to turn it into a fairly safe seat. He had been reelected six times with little difficulty, most recently in 2010.