The senator behind Washington's psilocybin bills is trailing in his re-election race

For four years, one name has been on nearly every psilocybin bill in Olympia. Sen. Jesse Salomon, a Shoreline Democrat, was the prime sponsor of the 2023 law that funded the University of Washington's psilocybin study, of the 2025 bill for supervised adult use, and of the 2026 bill for a medical program. After the November 3 election, it isn't clear he'll be in the Senate when the next session starts.

Where the count stands

Salomon was challenged by state Rep. Cindy Ryu, also a Democrat, in the 32nd Legislative District, which takes in Shoreline, a slice of north Seattle and parts of south Snohomish County. After the ballots counted on Friday, November 6, Ryu led 50.4% to 47.9%, the Everett Herald reported. A tally published by Decision Desk HQ on November 10 showed her ahead 32,372 votes to 30,278 with most of the expected vote counted.

Those are unofficial numbers. Two election trackers, Ballotpedia and MultiState, already list Ryu as the winner, and Ballotpedia notes that totals can change until results are certified. The state certifies by December 3, the Herald reported. Until then the accurate description is that Salomon is trailing.

Why it matters for psilocybin

Bills need someone to carry them, and in the Senate that has been Salomon every time:

• 2023: 2SSB 5263, which became law and paid for the UW study.
• 2025: SB 5201, for supervised adult-use services. It never left the Labor & Commerce Committee.
• 2026: SB 5921, for a medical program run by the Department of Health. It passed the Health & Long-Term Care Committee on February 3 and went no further than Ways & Means.

The House companion to the 2025 bill, HB 1433, was sponsored by Rep. Nicole Macri of Seattle, who was far ahead in her own race in unofficial results. A new Senate bill would need a new lead if Salomon isn't there, and all of the earlier bills are dead regardless: 2025 and 2026 were one two-year cycle, and anything that didn't pass ended with it.

The calendar from here

1. By December 3: the state certifies the November election.
2. December: lawmakers can prefile bills in the month before a session. KOMO has reported that prefiling opens December 7. As of November 12, nothing had been prefiled on any subject.
3. January 11, 2027: the session opens. State law starts it on the second Monday of January. It's a 105-day session, which the Legislature's schedule runs through April 25, though it still marks those dates as not yet official.

What else lawmakers will have in front of them

In 2023 lawmakers chose to study psilocybin before deciding anything bigger. The results of that study aren't public yet. The UW study it funded, for veterans and first responders with PTSD and alcohol use disorder, listed November 1, 2026 as the estimated date for finishing its main data collection, and the registry entry hasn't been updated since August 13, 2026. No results have been posted.

Two county councils have also weighed in since the last session ended. King County's council in March and Pierce County's in September both put themselves on record for decriminalization at the state level.

None of that changes the law as it stands today. Psilocybin is still illegal in Washington, and our Washington law guide covers the penalties and the full history of each bill. We'll update this story when the election is certified.

Last checked against the sources above on Nov 12, 2026. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.