Lona Wilbur savors second vote for Kamala Harris as president

The polls are closed and Lona Wilbur has cast her ballot.

But the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community member and La Conner High School alum will vote a second time for Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party's standard bearer.

And she'll do so legally.

Wilbur has served numerous party roles at the local, state and national levels during a long and fruitful tenure in politics. Now she is Washington state's Second Congressional District elector and will travel to Olympia next month to pledge her official Electoral College vote for Harris and running mate Tim Walz.

Harris easily carried Washington in the Nov. 5 general election but fell short nationally against Republican nominee Donald Trump. He becomes the only president after Grover Cleveland to win two non-consecutive terms in the White House.

Wilbur has experienced campaign highs and lows as a precinct committee official and state and national Democratic Party representative but had not served as a presidential elector.

"It's the one thing I haven't done," said Wilbur, who has attended several Democratic national conventions. "I'm very honored. It's one thing that I really wanted to do that was on my bucket list."

The items already checked off that list are quite remarkable.

Wilbur was in Boston's Fleet Center in 2004 when a then-unknown Barack Obama burst on the scene with a stirring speech to Democratic delegates.

"I was sitting behind him as he took the convention floor to address the convention," Wilbur recalled. "He wasn't a U.S. senator yet and many didn't know who he was and his speech was amazing.

"It was like the roof of the roof of the building was lifted," she said. "That convention was epic."

That national exposure propelled Obama to the Senate and then to the White House.

Wilbur was twice invited to Obama's Chicago headquarters and attended his 2009 and 2013 inaugural ceremonies, including the official ball.

She was also in the room to hear legendary late civil rights leader and congressman John Lewis address the Democratic National Committee's Native American caucus.

During one national convention, Wilbur entered the hall with Madeleine Albright, secretary of state from 1997-2001.

"I saw all the cameras come at her and I got in walking with her as if I was part of her entourage," said Wilbur.

Her entry into the political world came as a student when social studies teacher Vince Sellen registered Wilbur to vote. A relative stressed to her the importance of voting, advice she took to heart and has not forgotten.

Now a youthful 66, Wilbur said she had the ideal role models in her elders. Her great-grandfather, Jimmy Charles, was elected to the Swinomish Senate in 1934. Her grandfather, Ray Charles, was a tribal leader who represented Swinomish when the Rainbow Bridge was dedicated in 1957.

Wilbur's paternal grandparents, Laura and Tandy Wilbur Sr., were personal friends and confidants of Washington's powerful U.S. Senators Warren Magnuson and Henry "Scoop" Jackson and Gov. Albert Rosellini. They were on the convention floor in 1960 when John F. Kennedy was nominated to run for president.

"Somehow," she reflected, "I knew this and after growing up it became my lifelong desire to be an elected delegate to the Democratic National Convention like my grandparents. I first ran when I was 28. I was a newbie and didn't win. It was very, very competitive. Then, at 48, in 2004, I decided I have to do this and made it my mission to prevail and not take a back seat."

She's been in the front seat of history ever since.

Over the past two decades Wilbur has been a state Democratic committee member, the Second Congressional District's representative on the party's executive board and logged two terms during the Obama years as state representative with the Democratic National Committee.

Her latest foray into the political realm occurred has been this selection as the Second District's Democratic Party elector from a handful of candidates.

"I'm very thrilled, as with all my life's commitments to working for our Washington state Democratic Party, with this position as elector," Wilbur said prior to the presidential election. "This is one I have not held and was yet to do."