Melissa Chaudhry, a self-identified progressive Democratic candidate for Congress in Washington State, is facing backlash and calls to rescind her endorsements after she equivocated on support for the LGBTQ+ community and admitted she’ll drop Democrats for the Green Party if she’s elected to Congress.
That seems increasingly unlikely.
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The trouble for Chaudhry, a candidate for U.S. Congressional District 9 in Seattle, began with an endorsement meeting with the city’s alt weekly publication The Stranger.
“I don’t want you to publish this,” Chaudhry blurted before explaining her planned party switch, “but if elected, my personal plan and commitment is to be the first Green Party member of Congress that would switch parties while I’m in office.”
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At least one member the Stranger’s endorsement committee was dumbfounded.
“This is on the record, by the way,” they said. “This whole meeting, this whole process is on the record so if there’s something if you don’t want said, don’t say it in the meeting.”
But Chaudhry said it, and the admission contributed to the paper’s endorsement of one of her four rivals in the race, Kshama Sawant, an Independent.
Chaudhry, Sawant, and two other candidates face longtime incumbent Adam Smith, ranking member of the Armed Services Committee and a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, in a top-two nonpartisan primary on August 4.
Douglas Michael Basler, who was swamped by Smith 71% to 28% in his race for the same seat in 2022, is the lone Republican in the race. Chaudhry, as well, has already challenged Smith, earning just 33% of the vote in 2024.
In the same endorsement meeting, Chaudhry was asked by the committee what LGBTQ+ issues earn her support.
Her “laundry list,” in the words of The Stranger, included justice, health care, and protections in housing and employment.
“Then why is that not on your website?” one committee member asked.
“Because a lot of Muslims do not feel that way, unfortunately,” Chaudhry, a Muslim herself, said.
The Stranger’s endorsement of Sawant, who was present at the same meeting, included all of this information and earned immediate backlash and calls to any organizations that have endorsed Chaudhry to drop them.
“Our community is not expendable,” said Andrew Ashiofu, the chair of Washington Stonewall Democrats, the caucus for LGBTQ+ Democrats, in a post to social media. “LGBTQ+ rights are not optional. They are foundational to any candidate seeking Democratic support.”
Chaudhry replied with a long explanation in the comments section of Ashiofu’s post, addressed to “Friends.”
“You deserve an explanation,” she wrote. “My interview with The Stranger alongside Kshama Sawant was one of the least-proud moments of my life.”
In sum, Chaudhry said she has LGBTQ+ friends, so “your rights are safe with me.” She also lamented being attacked by “a bulldog who kept on tearing my flesh.”
“I decided not to respond,” Ashiofu told The Stranger. “She’s throwing blame on other people and saying she has LGBTQ+ friends. That’s the same thing as a racist saying, ‘I have Black friends.’”
“True Democrats organizations would not support someone that doesn’t think that LGBTQ+ people’s priorities are important,” Ashiofu added. He also thought Chaudhry’s Green Party gambit was “deceptive,” adding, “We are done with deceptive politics.”
At least one organization, the 33rd Legislative District Democrats, is moving to rescind their endorsement of the candidate.
Chaudhry was once the favorite to challenge Smith in the general.
Following her loss in the 2024 race for Congress, ICE detained her husband, Zahid Chaudhry, a decorated and disabled Army veteran, for months. Chaudhry made headlines working for his release, and wrote a book about it, positioning herself in the deep blue district as the better progressive to take on racist federal immigration policy.
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