OLYMPIA — A legislative race that will determine control of the Washington Senate is the most expensive in state history.
Officials with the Public Disclosure Commission said Wednesday that combined spending by the campaigns Democrat Manka Dhingra and Republican Jinyoung Lee Englund exceeds $2.4 million, surpassing the previous record of nearly $1.5 million. That 2014 race — between the late Republican Sen. Andy Hill and Democratic opponent Matt Isenhower — was in the same district. This year’s race is to serve the last year of a four-year term left vacant by Hill’s death.
Republicans, with the help of a Democrat who caucuses with them, currently control the Senate by a single seat. The spending by the campaigns does not include about $3.7 million spent by outside groups so far.
