Eamonn Collins, chair of the Whatcom Democrats, is joining the race this year to replace State Sen. Sharon Shewmake.
Shewmake announced in December she would not be running for reelection, saying she was prioritizing her two sons. Since 2022, she has been a senator of the 42nd District, which spans most of Whatcom County excluding half of Bellingham and a southeastern area.
Her term expires in January 2027. Four candidates, including Collins, have so far declared their intention to run for the seat, including Port of Bellingham Commissioner Michael Shepard, a Democrat, and Blaine School Board director Erika Creydt, a Republican. Ryan Bowman, who did not list a party affiliation, is also registered to run.
Collins is a science teacher at Lummi Nation School. His priorities include funding public housing and taxing the wealthy to allow for “tax relief for working families and seniors,” according to a news release, which also mentioned protecting access to reproductive and primary care. In an interview, he said teaching allows him to see what people’s lives are really like.
“Anybody who sees people on their worst day has a pretty realistic sense of how it’s actually going,” he said. “And I think that even people who are getting by right now are living on a knife’s edge.”
He ran for Bellingham City Council in 2023, but lost to incumbent Hannah Stone. He then ran for and was elected to the county Charter Review Commission in 2024.
In this race, Collins counts Whatcom County Council members Kaylee Galloway, Jon Scanlon, Elizabeth Boyle and Jessica Rienstra among his endorsements, along with Bellingham City Council member Jace Cotton.
Collins said he plans to step down as the Whatcom Democrats chair “to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest.” The group doesn’t usually endorse candidates in primaries unless there’s a possibility that a Democrat won’t advance to the general election, he said.
State government will be a key avenue for change moving forward given “dysfunction” at the federal level and the limitations on local government, Collins said. Given recent cuts to federal support, “there needs to be a proportional response in growing our own state level capacity to take care of our people.”
Collins is also vice president of Kulshan Community Land Trust.
Before teaching in Whatcom, Collins was an education policy advisor in the U.S. Congress, the news release said, noting he “believes the district must be proactive in the face of federal volatility.”
“I’ve seen how policy is written, I know who is included and who is not,” Collins said in the statement. “I’m running to make sure our state government urgently confronts the crises burdening my students, my neighbors on fixed incomes, and every working family trying to make it here.”
This story was updated at 9:18 p.m. on Feb. 24, 2026, with comments from Eamonn Collins.
Sophia Gates covers rural Whatcom and Skagit counties. She is a Washington State Murrow Fellow whose work is underwritten by taxpayers and available outside CDN's paywall. Reach her at sophiagates@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 131.
