ELLENSBURG — An Ellensburg Democrat is running for a seat in the state House of Representatives currently held by Rep. Tom Dent, R-Moses Lake, campaigning on a platform of political and economic centrism.

Jesse Hegstrom Oakey, a 27-year-old political science graduate from Central Washington University, hopes to offer a choice to voters in the conservative 13th Legislative District, which rarely sees Democratic competitors.

“What choice do you have if your representative runs unopposed, that’s no choice at all,” Hegstrom Oakey said in a press release. “Politicians should have to work for it, it should be hard. No candidate for office should take the voters for granted.”

After winning a contested race by nearly a 2-1 margin for the seat in the state House vacated by now-Senator Judy Warnick, the two-term representative has ran unopposed once since he assumed office in 2015.

Dent has never competed against a Democrat for his current seat, as his first race was against another Republican. The Democratic Party has struggled in previous years to receive even one-third of the votes in the predominantly conservative district and has not fielded a candidate for this seat since 2004.

A self-described centrist, Hegstrom Oakey is banking on separating himself from others in the Democratic Party, which he said has failed to address many of the concerns of white working-class voters. Though he considers himself socially liberal, Hegstrom Oakey said his religious upbringing and economic centrism align him better with the values of average voters in the region.

Hegstrom Oakey said a centrist Democrat would have greater influence in a legislature with Democratic majorities, and his ultimate responsibility would be in responding to his constituents.

“Half of this job is being able to speak intelligently about politics or economics, but the other half of this job is about listening,” Hegstrom Oakey said. “I have a very radical notion that if you’re going to vote on what your constituency thinks, then you should probably know what they think.”

Hegstrom Oakey’s legislative priorities includes strengthening K-12 education, investing in vocational training, and ensuring affordable higher education, housing, and medical care for Washingtonians, but he is less ideologically constrained to a particular solution than more partisan politicians, he said. What matters to voters concerned about governmental solutions to issues like healthcare is if they work, he said.

“I don’t think Americans care if it’s a Republican plan or a Democratic plan, I don’t think they care who gets credit for it or who gets to sign it into law or who gets to run on it in the next election cycle, they just care if it works,” Hegstrom Oakey said. “They just care if average everyday citizens have access to quality health care at an affordable price.”

In contrast, Hegstrom Oakey said, Dent had pushed a bill to bring more firearms into schools to lower the risk of school shootings, despite knowing that the bill had no chance to pass or have an effect on the lives of constituents. If elected, Hegstrom Oakey said, he would spend less time posturing and more time working on legislation with a chance to pass.

Dent did not respond before press time to a request for comment.

With his declaration of candidacy, Hegstrom Oakey joins fellow Democratic hopeful Sylvia Hammond, who is running against Rep. Matt Manweller, R-Ellensburg for the district’s other state House seat.