Joe Biden’s old problems are now Donald Trump’s problems — and Americans think Trump is making them even worse – Northwest Progressive Institute

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate presents the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on politics, culture, and society.
Don­ald Trump’s job per­for­mance rat­ings have fall­en sharply, includ­ing on the very issues that pub­lic opin­ion research sug­gests pow­ered his return to the White House in 2024. But while Trump’s polit­i­cal stand­ing has bad­ly dete­ri­o­rat­ed, Democ­rats still face deep skep­ti­cism from many vot­ers and need to become more peo­ple-pow­ered if they want to regain trust and credibility.
A key part of a recent­ly enact­ed law sub­ject­ing elect­ed coun­ty sher­iffs to the same stan­dards as those who work for them was tem­porar­i­ly blocked a day before it was set to go into effect by a long-wind­ed Thurston Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court judge. The State of Wash­ing­ton plans to appeal the decision.
By over­turn­ing the State of Louisiana’s lat­est con­gres­sion­al map, the six-mem­ber right wing bloc on the nation’s high­est court has opened the door to wide­spread dilu­tion of minor­i­ty vot­ing pow­er and a new era of aggres­sive gerrymandering.
New jour­nal­ism under­scores the self-defeat­ing nature of Repub­li­can-backed vot­ing restric­tions, show­ing they would dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly bur­den rur­al and Repub­li­can vot­ers. As efforts to dis­man­tle vote-at-home per­sist, the data makes clear that the great­est harm would fall on the very peo­ple who put Don­ald Trump back in power.
A cham­pi­on of demo­c­ra­t­ic par­tic­i­pa­tion, Sen­a­tor Sam Hunt played a cen­tral role in advanc­ing some of Washington’s most con­se­quen­tial vot­ing reforms. Just as endur­ing was his rep­u­ta­tion for kind­ness, humil­i­ty, and respect for others.
The week’s major votes includ­ed Sen­ate pas­sage of a bud­get bill under rec­on­cil­i­a­tion rules to fund ICE and CBP for sev­er­al years and House pas­sage of leg­is­la­tion to sab­o­tage envi­ron­men­tal laws like the Clean Air Act.
Restraint mat­ters most when facts are scarce and the pur­suit of the truth has just begun. The urge to spec­u­late is pow­er­ful, but we have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to each oth­er and our­selves to shun base­less con­spir­a­cy theories.
Fac­ing talk of delays and cuts, Bal­lard res­i­dents, tran­sit advo­cates, and allies are mobi­liz­ing to defend a cor­ner­stone tran­sit invest­ment that vot­ers approved near­ly a decade ago. They saw a huge enthu­si­as­tic turnout for a Save Bal­lard Rail ral­ly and march on April 19th.
The film, released at the end of 2025 through Net­flix, is a sear­ing look at secre­cy, account­abil­i­ty, and the jour­nal­ists who force the truth into the open across decades of Amer­i­can conflict.
Springer was first elect­ed in 2004, when East­side dis­tricts were still bat­tle­grounds between Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans, and has won every reelec­tion cam­paign since then. He has served as House Deputy Major­i­ty Leader for over a decade and is known for his work on fund­ing wild­fire response and pre­ven­tion mea­sures. He leaves behind a safe­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic open seat.
The week’s major votes includ­ed the fail­ure of more Iran war pow­ers res­o­lu­tions in the House and Sen­ate, House pas­sage of bills to destroy envi­ron­men­tal safe­guards, and Sen­ate con­fir­ma­tion of more Trump judi­cial nominees.
This 2020 book offers a mea­sured but unset­tling por­trait of a world orga­nized around accu­mu­la­tion, and a call to rethink how we live with­in plan­e­tary lim­its, echo­ing The Sto­ry of Stuff and Recipe for America. 
The Washington State Republican Party’s continued embrace of militant right wing extremism and unapologetic alignment with neofascist Donald Trump has left it extremely vulnerable in a cycle that’s expected to be favorable to Democratic candidates across the country. Many Republicans aren’t acknowledging the prospect of losses, but today brought an interesting exception.
The long­time colum­nist cul­ti­vat­ed a net­work of friends, acquain­tances, and sources that are join­ing elect­ed lead­ers and col­leagues in pay­ing their respects and shar­ing their fond memories.
The Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate is writ­ten by the staff, board, and con­trib­u­tors of the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, a region­al­ly focused non­prof­it work­ing from Wash­ing­ton, Ore­gon, & Ida­ho to con­struc­tive­ly trans­form our world through insight­ful research and imag­i­na­tive advocacy.
NPI was found­ed in August 2003 and is based in Red­mond, Washington.
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