The Donors Behind
Rep. Marilyn Strickland (D-WA) enters today's primary on August 4th with a financial advantage her Democratic challengers cannot match. She raised $1.51 million for the 2025-2026 cycle, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings, with roughly $839,000 coming from individual donors and about $667,000 from political action committees (PACs) and other committees. She ended the filing period with $677,498 in cash on hand.
That institutional support tracks with her committee work. Strickland sits on the House Armed Services Committee and on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Her district includes Joint Base Lewis-McChord, home to roughly 50,000 Army and Air Force personnel and civilians, keeping defense and veterans' policy central to both her legislative record and her donor base.
Rep. Strickland has sponsored the Fairness for Servicemembers and their Families Act of 2024, and discussed her bipartisan approach to urban heat policy with KOMO News as part of her work on the Cool Corridors Act.
Strickland's fundraising dwarfs that of her Democratic primary opponents who have filed FEC reports. Alex Scheel raised $6,237 for his campaign; Adam Arafat, a Pierce County government employee, raised $330.
The Closing Argument
Six candidates appear on today's top-two primary ballot for Washington's 10th Congressional District, and the leading two finishers advance to the November general election regardless of party. Scheel, an Army veteran and former interrogator who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, has built a campaign around ending U.S. military aid to Israel and funding the Department of Veterans Affairs directly rather than outsourcing care.
Arafat, also an Army veteran, has centered his run on Medicare for All and on Congress's constitutional authority over war powers, arguing that "WA-10 families at JBLM bear the human cost of that constitutional breach." He has also said he accepts no corporate PAC money and no American Israel Public Affairs Committee money.
Both men are running against Strickland from the left in a district Kamala Harris carried by wide margins in 2024. Here, the fundraising gap points to the likeliest outcome. Chung, the only Republican in the race, is positioned to claim the second general-election spot by default unless the anti-war vote consolidates behind a single Democratic challenger. Scheel and Arafat have shown no sign of stepping aside for each other, and neither has raised the resources needed to make that consolidation matter on the ballot today.
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