David Olson is no newcomer to politics or working the campaign trail. The retired Navy diver and former banker has served as a director on the Peninsula School Board for 13 years. It is a position he intends to keep if elected to serve as the 26th Legislative District’s Representative, Pos. 1, in the Washington State Legislature, a seat now held by Rep. Adison Richards (D-26th).
“There is nothing that says I can’t do both,” Olson said. “There are other legislators in Olympia who serve additional roles within their communities, like Sen. T’wina Nobles (D-28th). She even sits on education committees while serving as a director on the school board of University Place School District.”
In addition to his multiple nonpartisan school board election wins, Olson was elected in 2015 to serve on the Pierce County Charter Review Board. In 2018, he ran as a Republican for Pierce County Council District 7 and lost to former Councilmember Derek Young, a Democrat.
By 2024, Olson said he felt frustrated by what he considered the poor leadership of Chris Reykdal in the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. He directed his criticism at Reykdal’s lack of effort to work with the state legislature to achieve long-term benefits. He thought long and hard before entering that statewide race with his family’s blessings.
Olson lost to Reykdal that November but said the frustrations he heard and the lessons he learned while campaigning — speaking to groups small and large, meeting and shaking hands with voters throughout the state who felt outnumbered — inspired him to try to do more.
On the electoral map of Washington State, Olson said that “except for three counties that are solid blue, the rest of Washington state is red. So those couple of counties, where the majority of people live, determine the outcome of the whole state. But there’s a lot of people who live in those other places that don’t get much of a say when their representatives are overwhelmed by the supermajority.”
According to the nonpartisan research site Ballotpedia, between nine and 13 of Washington's 39 counties leaned Democratic in state and federal elections, respectively, between 2016 and 2024, all but one west of the Cascades.
Olson told KP News that at a recent Chamber of Commerce forum, he told the group he isn’t running against the incumbent Richards, but “I am running for a seat to restore balance to Olympia.”
“I believe that it’s better for the state when we have parity in Olympia, like there was back when Jan Angel (R) and Larry Seaquist (D) were in office. It was like a two-seat majority in both chambers then,” Olson said. “They had to work together. Nothing passed without them talking to each other. We had more pragmatic conversations with parity; the bills were more bipartisan. Today bills aren’t bipartisan at all.”
“If the Democrats get a supermajority, I know they’ll do a constitutional amendment change and probably put an income tax on there,” Olson said. “So, No. 1 is to prevent a supermajority in Olympia.”
While Olson said he may disagree with some votes Richards took, he points to the fact that you’ll never hear him personally disparage the man. He said he never attacked Reykdal’s character in the race for OSPI, nor did he disparage his latest opponent for the school board, Jonathan Appleton. Olson said when he runs his campaigns, his goal is not to attack his opponents but to focus instead on the issues that matter to him.
It’s no surprise public education ranks high in Olson’s priorities. Fiscal accountability is another area of significant concern for Olson, who said he is accustomed not only to managing and auditing large budgets but also to auditing the effectiveness of whole systems. He said few things trouble him more than unfunded mandates directed by state governance.
“I ran for OSPI two years ago because I didn’t think the state was maintaining its constitutional obligation to fully fund education, particularly special ed. The state has only gone backwards since then.”
Olson said the Peninsula School District cut $12 million from its annual budget, and three years later earned a top 25 award from OSPI. “We didn’t get worse by saving money and becoming more efficient; we got better.”
He recalled saying in all his debates with Reykdal that if he won the election, he wanted to audit OSPI. Olson told KP News that in Reykdal’s eight years, he added something like 300 staff to OSPI while statewide results got worse. “He increased his payroll but didn’t get any better.”
In his current campaign for state representative, Olson told KP News he is saying the same thing.
“If I get elected, I’d like to push for external audits. I think (Washington State Auditor) Pat McCarthy is a nice lady and have a lot of respect for her, but I wouldn’t want her to audit the state budget. But we should audit that capital fund, transportation fund, all those.”
According to OSPI, its staff grew from about 300 to over 400 in the last decade. New positions were added to comply with new education and oversight requirements passed by the Legislature.
The Office of the Washington State Auditor routinely audits individual school districts, but delivered its first audit of OSPI to the Legislature in June 2026. The review concluded that OSPI’s 17-year-old IT system is outdated and at risk of “catastrophic failure.”
According to the report, the Legislature adjusts funding formulas in every budget, “but it can also change the funding model in any number of ways each year. In the 2023-2025 biennium, it allocated $30 billion for public education,” including funding improvements at OSPI.
For more information on the audit, go to: https://sao.wa.gov/reports-data/audit-reports/examining-accuracy-school-funding-systems-ospi.
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