This morn­ing, a num­ber of Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates for statewide and fed­er­al office woke up to the real­i­ty that they are not run­ning close enough behind the top two-vote get­ters in their respec­tive races to hold out hope of being able to go on to the Novem­ber gen­er­al elec­tion (which is in actu­al­i­ty just a runoff, since we don’t have a real pri­ma­ry in Washington).

Among those can­di­dates are Greg Nick­els and Craig Pride­more, who filed to run for the offices of sec­re­tary of state and audi­tor, respec­tive­ly. Each man has bowed out of his race in a classy, grace­ful fash­ion… by con­grat­u­lat­ing the win­ners and thank­ing sup­port­ers via Face­book, while say­ing noth­ing neg­a­tive about anybody.

Nick­els is the for­mer may­or of Seat­tle; Pride­more is the incum­bent state sen­a­tor from the 49th LD (Van­cou­ver and urban Clark County).

Here’s what Nick­els had to say about his third-place fin­ish ear­li­er today:

They say if you are thrown from a horse you should get back on. In a sense that is what I was doing in my run for Wash­ing­ton Sec­re­tary of State and, while the results were not what I had hoped, I am very glad I did! It was a great expe­ri­ence and I am grate­ful for the oppor­tu­ni­ty and for the won­der­ful sup­port so many of you gave me.

I con­grat­u­late the two can­di­dates who are advanc­ing, Kim Wyman (R) and Kath­leen Drew (D), both ran pos­i­tive and effec­tive campaigns.

Pride­more, mean­while, post­ed the fol­low­ing state­ment late last night, after the ear­ly returns were all in (which showed him in third place):

Thanks to every­one for four­teen amaz­ing years. Few peo­ple get the chance to expe­ri­ence what I’ve had the chance to expe­ri­ence. You all mean more to me than I’ll ever be able to express.

This evening, he added:

I do for­mal­ly con­cede the State Audi­tor’s pri­ma­ry to James Watkins and Troy Kel­ley. They have my sin­cere best wish­es in all their endeav­ors in the months and years ahead.

Pride­mor­e’s loss to Kel­ley and Watkins gives him the unfor­tu­nate dis­tinc­tion of being the only can­di­date the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty nom­i­nat­ed for statewide or fed­er­al office in 2012 who did not sur­vive the win­now­ing elec­tion. Wash­ing­ton does not cur­rent­ly have a real pri­ma­ry, so vot­ers don’t get to pick the par­ties’ nom­i­nees as they do in near­ly every oth­er state.

Instead of a real pri­ma­ry, Wash­ing­ton has a goofy, poor­ly con­ceived “Top Two“system, where the top two vote get­ters (as the name sug­gests) advance to a runoff regard­less of par­ty. Con­se­quent­ly, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty select­ed its 2012 nom­i­nees by con­ven­tion instead of through a primary.

We at NPI believe the “Top Two” sys­tem is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, and the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty does so as well. The par­ty is ask­ing the U.S. Supreme Court to declare the “Top Two” sys­tem uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, so Wash­ing­ton can read­opt a real pri­ma­ry sys­tem that pro­tects vot­er choice in the gen­er­al elec­tion and respects every­one’s First Amend­ment right to free assembly.