Election Update: Whatcom, Spokane races

With a lit­tle more than 9,000 votes to count, it seems that What­com Coun­ty races have been decided. 

The real inter­est­ing race in What­com Coun­ty is inside the 42nd dis­trict. Matt Krogh is chal­leng­ing fresh­man Vin­cent Buys and Natal­ie McClen­don is chal­leng­ing Jason Over­street. Buys doesn’t have much of a record and Rep. Over­street doesn’t even get along with mem­bers of his (Repub­li­can) par­ty. Num­bers today and yes­ter­day show the same mar­gin, with McClen­don and Krogh behind by about 7%. Riley Sweeney from The Polit­i­cal Junkie quot­ed Matt, who said that the results were “with­in our mar­gin of vic­to­ry. When you fig­ure in the con­ser­v­a­tive swing of the low turnout, this is a success.” 

The intrigu­ing part about the 42nd is that both Matt and Natal­ie are behind by the same mar­gin against their oppo­nents, show­ing that vot­ers who vote for one can­di­date will vote for the oth­er, sug­gest­ing per­haps a clos­er coor­di­na­tion is need­ed between the two campaigns.

Rep. Kris Lyt­ton ran an uncon­test­ed race, so no news there. Both Sen­a­tor Kevin Ranker and Rep. Jeff Mor­ris have won hand­i­ly, and from all looks these two dis­tin­guished offi­cials will win the gen­er­al elec­tion and con­tin­ue to serve their con­stituents well in Olympia. 

In Spokane, Amy Biviano came behind her oppo­nent, Matt Shea, the incum­bent Repub­li­can who has been cit­ed for pulling an ille­gal gun on anoth­er dri­ver dur­ing a road inci­dent. This is the only notable race in the 4th, as the two oth­er Repub­li­cans in the 4th leg­isla­tive dis­trict ran uncon­test­ed cam­paigns. In the 6th, Rep. Andy Bil­lig, run­ning for retir­ing Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Lisa Brown’s seat, con­tin­ues to trump Spokane City Coun­cil Mem­ber Nan­cy McLaugh­lin with almost 58 per­cent of the vote, and Mar­cus Ric­cel­li leads the field in the race to replace Rep. Bil­lig. Ric­cel­li was run­ning against two oth­er Democ­rats and two Repub­li­cans in the pri­ma­ry, and will face off against Tim Benn in the gen­er­al election. 

With ground to be gained in the 42nd and the 4th, it seems that, with strong cam­paigns, con­ser­v­a­tives in the area can be kicked out of the leg­is­la­ture. Spokane is not the con­ser­v­a­tive strong­hold many believe it is, and with more vot­ers turn­ing out in the gen­er­al elec­tion, the news for our state could be reserved­ly optimistic.