media interviews, entered the race for the Democratic nomination for US Senate due to her opposition to the presence of US troops in Iraq, free trade agreements NAFTA and CAFTA, and the USA PATRIOT Act, all of which incumbent Senator Maria Cantwell had voted in favor of. Tran had previously considered entering the Democratic primary to challenge Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Seattle), who she considered insufficiently strong on poverty issues. After Mark Wilson, a fellow anti-Iraq War candidate, dropped out of the primary, endorsed Cantwell, and accepted a position on her campaign staff as "outreach coordinator" with a salary of $8,000 per month, Tran's campaign began receiving more attention, as she was the only anti-war Democratic candidate left in the primary at that time. One day later, Tran was contacted by Dal LaMagna (a progressive activist and organizer who himself had been hired by the Cantwell campaign the day before Wilson) about joining the Cantwell campaign. Based on the context of the call, Tran interpreted this to be a job offer, which she declined. These events caused political commentators, like those in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and The Washington Times, to surmise that this was an attempt by the Cantwell campaign to silence the anti-Iraq War opposition in her party. In an interview with KUOW, a Seattle NPR affiliate, Tran noted Cantwell's avoidance of debates and challenged Cantwell to debate with her. Tran criticized Cantwell for not being the most electable Democratic candidate because she believed Cantwell had divided the party. Tran speculated that Cantwell had alienated the progressive portion of the state to the extent that many would either stay home or vote for a third party candidate during the general election. Despite Tran's harsh criticism of Senator Cantwell, Tran said that if she lost, she would vote for the Democratic nominee in the general election because she wanted her "vote to count". In the September 19 edition of The Washington Times, Tran was quoted as saying that if she lost in the primary she would "certainly not" endorse Cantwell. Both media reports and Tran's campaign press releases highlighted the lack of support provided to Tran by the state Democratic party leadership, such as restricting her access to the party's voter database and refusing to let her bring campaign signs into a Coordinated Campaign event at Whittier Elementary. Tran claimed that the party leadership was preventing the distribution of information about