Tri-Cities school board leader plans WA Senate run amid political shakeup
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Gabe Galbraith, Kennewick School Board’s president, launches state Senate campaign.
- Seat could open if Sen. Matt Boehnke pursues a congressional bid this year.
- His campaign for WA’s 8th LD will stress cost control, public safety, and local jobs.
Kennewick’s school board president announced Tuesday his campaign for Washington state Senate.
Gabe Galbraith plans to run for Washington’s 8th Legislative District later this year as a Republican. The seat could be vacated by Sen. Matt Boehnke, R-Kennewick, who is weighing a run for Congress.
“With the possibility of changes ahead, I believe it’s important to be prepared and to give our community a strong, experienced option if that opportunity arises,” Galbraith said in a statement. “For me, this is about stepping up responsibly and making sure the 8th district continues to have steady, effective representation in Olympia.”
Galbraith is a security specialist working at the Hanford nuclear site and a small business owner. He served in the U.S. Marines between 2003 and 2007, and is a former Kennewick schools substitute. He’s a product of the Tri-Cities, and graduated from Kamiakin High School.
Tri-City families are feeling the pinch of rising costs, public safety challenges and decisions made in Olympia without enough local input, Galbraith says.
“My campaign will focus on lowering the cost of living, prioritizing public safety, supporting strong schools with local control, protecting family-wage jobs, and ensuring responsible government that works for the people who live and work here,” he said.
He first won election to the school board in 2021, focusing his campaign on the school district’s response to the COVID pandemic. Through his wife, a Kennewick teacher, he saw how kids struggled to learn and succeed during remote learning.
Galbraith was selected by the school board to serve as president in 2023, and he won reelection to public office last year without much opposition.
During his tenure, Galbraith has helped back an expansion of school safety officers in Kennewick elementary schools, scrubbed gender identity sections from new sex education curricula, and hired new Superintendent Lance Hansen. Galbraith says the board’s budget oversight has resulted in Kennewick having the best fiscal health out of any school district in the Mid-Columbia.
Over the years on the board, he’s also championed conservative school reforms while helping like-minded candidates get elected in Kennewick.
Kennewick’s school board has been one of the state’s leading voices in advocating for reforms around transgender students. The board last year requested “urgent” federal intervention, and claimed Washington state was breaking the law by allowing transgender students to participate in girls sports and use girls locker rooms. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights ultimately declined to investigate, citing a lack of jurisdiction.
Galbraith and school board Vice President Micah Valentine have also backed an initiative to block trans teens from girls sports, which is likely to be voted on by the Washington Legislature in the upcoming session.
He lives in Kennewick with his wife. They are raising three children, two of whom are in college.
Washington’s 8th Legislative District includes most of Kennewick and parts of west Pasco. It extends across Benton County, and includes rural sections of Benton City and Prosser.
