Early returns are close, but it looks like Tim Eyman’s I‑1125 is headed down to defeat

FROM ANDREW: Good evening and hel­lo from Fado in Seat­tle! Grace, Eve, and I are mon­i­tor­ing and track­ing elec­tion results from the NO on I‑1125 par­ty, where peo­ple are in a pret­ty good mood.

That’s because, for the moment, it looks like Tim Eyman’s I‑1125 is nar­row­ly head­ed down to defeat. Thank goodness!

As of  around 8:30 PM, the NO vote stood at 51.56%, with the yes vote at 48.44%. Returns are still com­ing in, so we expect these num­bers to change.

Keep Wash­ing­ton Rolling, the broad coali­tion work­ing to defeat I‑1125, is win­ning in much of west­ern Wash­ing­ton, and is doing espe­cial­ly well in King Coun­ty, where 60% of vot­ers are reject­ing I‑1125.

East­ern Wash­ing­ton coun­ties are most­ly vot­ing for I‑1125, with the excep­tion of Whit­man and Garfield coun­ties, which are both locat­ed in the south­east cor­ner of the state. Whit­man, along with King and San Juan, fre­quent­ly votes against right wing ini­tia­tives, but the vic­to­ry in Garfield is unexpected.

FROM GRACE: Big wins in swing coun­ties are play­ing a big role in the down vote on Tim Eyman’s ini­tia­tive. Island, Sno­homish, and Kit­sap, which are each crit­i­cal swing coun­ties, joined King in the NO col­umn, and that’s what’s mak­ing the dif­fer­ence in this elec­tion. Returns in all three of these coun­ties are close.

In Sno­homish Coun­ty, the no vote stands at 50.61% to 49.49% yes. In Kit­sap, it’s 50.78% “no” to 49.22% “yes”, and in Island, it’s 51.74% no to 48.26% yes. With these key coun­ties in the NO on I‑1125 col­umn, the out­look is look­ing good as coun­ties con­tin­ue to report results.

FROM ANDREW: The cam­paign team that ran Keep Wash­ing­ton Rolling for coali­tion mem­bers has just issued a state­ment react­ing to the defeat of I‑1125.

“Wash­ing­ton vot­ers sent a clear mes­sage that they want to keep Wash­ing­ton rolling safe­ly and not have our roads and bridges get bogged down in grid­lock, ” the state­ment said. “Once again, vot­ers around the state have reject­ed anoth­er reck­less Tim Eyman threat to vital trans­porta­tion projects.”

“An unprece­dent­ed coali­tion of busi­ness, labor, com­mu­ni­ty and envi­ron­men­tal groups opposed I‑1125 because the health of our com­mu­ni­ties and the health of our econ­o­my rely on a strong trans­porta­tion sys­tem that keeps peo­ple moving.”

“Our thanks go out to the vot­ers of Wash­ing­ton, the groups and indi­vid­u­als who gen­er­ous­ly donat­ed to the cam­paign, and the vol­un­teers who made tens of thou­sands of phone calls.”

Gov­er­nor Chris Gre­goire also weighed in on the appar­ent victory.

“I am pleased tonight that I‑1125 is fail­ing – and that vot­ers rec­og­nized the short-sight­ed­ness of this ini­tia­tive,” she said in a statement.

“While we are mak­ing incred­i­ble progress to replace the vul­ner­a­ble SR 520 float­ing bridge and the Alaskan Way Viaduct, we have more work to do to improve our trans­porta­tion infra­struc­ture. Had this ini­tia­tive passed, it would have great­ly inhib­it­ed our abil­i­ty to fund sig­nif­i­cant road improve­ment projects. Tonight, it appears we will keep that for­ward momen­tum and con­tin­ue to invest in region­al solu­tions to improve traf­fic, tran­sit and congestion.”