Local News

The Seattle Times political team explores national, state and local politics.

State Sen. Ed Murray picked up a national endorsement today in his campaign for Seattle mayor. The Human Rights Campaign, a civil rights organization working for equality for LGBT Americans, said it was breaking with its tradition of not getting involved in local races because of Murray’s “exceptional leadership on civil rights.”

Murray can’t actively campaign for mayor until the 2013 Legislature adjourns in several months. His campaign said that knowing it has the support of an organization with 65,000 members in the state means it will have plenty of volunteers when he does actively enter the race.

“They’re big. They have tens of thousands of members in the Seattle area. Their support and enthusiasm is going to power this campaign,” said Sandeep Kaushik, Murray’s campaign consultant.

The Human Rights Campaign said Murray, during 15 years in public office, had successfully built “bi-partisan support for Washington State’s historic marriage equality legislation.”

The group said that the only other local candidate to win its endorsement this year is Christine Quinn, the New York City Council Speaker, who is considered a frontrunner to succeed Michael Bloomberg as Mayor of New York.