Annie Fitzgerald is one of three candidates in the August 4 primary for the 38th District's Position 1, alongside incumbent Democrat Julio Cortes. It's a classic rematch: Fitzgerald won 25.5 percent of the vote in the 2024 general election, after both advanced past a third candidate in that year's primary.
A quarter of the vote against a two-term incumbent, run by a first-time candidate with six volunteers and a limited campaign budget is nothing short of incredible. Fitzgerald ran it almost entirely outside the traditional playbook, including online organizing and in-person town halls held in local parks - a novel approach, due to disabilities that made door-to-door and event-heavy campaigning difficult.
She describes herself as a community organizer first and a candidate second. "That is my first priority," she said, speaking of her experience working with Whole Washington and running for the Snohomish County Charter Review Commission.
Personal Experience
Fitzgerald didn't qualify for Medicaid this year. Her Social Security check, she said, is technically too large to clear the Medicaid threshold - even though it doesn't come close to covering what she actually spends on care. During the eligibility process, a caseworker ran her application through an automated system and deferred to what it said.
"We really need to have people looking at these applications and not just relying on what a computer says." - Annie Fitzgerald
Fitzgerald has personally encountered outdated eligibility systems, benefits cliffs, and administrative hurdles. She wants to raise the income limits for programs like Apple Health and SNAP to reflect present-day costs, eliminate the benefits cliff altogether, and build streamlined enrollment processes. Fitzgerald is a democratic socialist and an advocate with Whole Washington, the nonprofit organizing around the Washington Health Trust - a proposal to fund universal healthcare through taxes on employers, employees, and capital gains. It's a major pillar of her platform.
"People can't wait," Fitzgerald said of the push for a state healthcare system. "This is something they have been working on for years and years at this point. It's time to get on the ball and pass it now."
Cortes' record on healthcare is different. In 2025, he was one of the sponsors of HB 1445, the bill that would have created the Washington Health Trust. It died in committee. A year later, in a July Everett Herald profile on his current priorities, healthcare didn't even come up. Cortes' campaign has continued to take money from corporate donors in the healthcare space, including DaVita and Delta Dental, and his 2022 and 2024 campaign donors included insurers UnitedHealth Group and Centene. His corporate donors also include Boeing, Amazon, Alaska Airlines, Puget Sound Energy, and Royal Caribbean Group, among others.
Fitzgerald, by contrast, has taken no corporate contributions. "On a good day, I consider Julio to be a social Democrat at best," Fitzgerald said. "I am a proud democratic socialist."
The two campaigns look fundamentally different as well. Cortes' endorsement list includes Governor Bob Ferguson, U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, Snohomish County Executive Dave Somers, Everett Mayor Cassie Franklin, state Senator June Robinson, state Reps. Lillian Ortiz-Self and Strom Peterson, and Snohomish County Council members Megan Dunn and Jared Mead - the weight of the state's Democratic establishment. Fitzgerald's endorsements come from Progressive Victory, a left-leaning organizing group, and The Voice of the Mountain, a Marysville community newspaper.
Flocking Ridiculous
Cortes supported Senate Bill 6002, which regulates the automated license plate readers known as Flock cameras. It registers camera systems with the Attorney General, caps data retention at 21 days, and bars agencies from using the technology for immigration enforcement. The bill passed the House 84-10 in March, with Cortes among the yes votes.
But Fitzgerald opposes the use of Flock cameras altogether, a position shared by a growing number of Snohomish County cities that have paused or canceled their Flock contracts amid reporting that federal immigration agents accessed local camera networks without departments' knowledge.
Housing & Sustainability
Fitzgerald's platform includes a social housing program, tax breaks for developers building affordable units, and a willingness to revisit environmental permitting rules that slow construction. "If these concerns are something that's making it more difficult to build affordable housing, then we need to re-examine that while still doing what we can to protect the environment," she said.
The 38th District includes the Tulalip Reservation. Fitzgerald's platform supports expanded indigenous sovereignty, protecting salmon and river systems, and prioritizing renewable energy investment. In the same Everett Herald interview where healthcare went unmentioned, Cortes' climate answer made no mention of the Tulalip Tribes, the Nisqually Indian Tribe, or any of the tribal nations with a stake in the district he represents.
A Safer Washington
Fitzgerald wants gender-affirming care coverage codified into law across all state health plans, increased funding for LGBTQ youth shelter beds and mental health services, and stronger enforcement power for the state Human Rights Commission on housing and public-accommodation discrimination. She supports the No Hate in Washington State coalition organized against ballot initiatives from Brian Heywood's Let's Go Washington.
"If we are going to be a safe space for trans people, for people of the LGBTQ community to come here, we need to really be looking at and codifying some framework," she said, "so that we can work with these people to make sure that they have safe places to go."
Asked what she would tell Everett voters directly, Fitzgerald kept it simple. "If you want true progressive change, if you want somebody that is not beholden to corporate interests and lobbyists," she said, "then please consider giving me your support."