Live from Whatcom County: Election Night Coverage

After all of the long hours, can­vass­ing, phone calls, tears, endorse­ments, the day (or night has arrived) where we hear whether or not we’ll have a coun­ty coun­cil that will oppose the Cher­ry Point coal ter­mi­nal, pro­tect local water qual­i­ty, and sup­ports work­ers, or one that will con­tin­ue to keep What­com Coun­ty out of align­ment with the Growth Man­age­ment Act, destroy work­ers rights and con­tin­ue to degrade our environment.

I’m at the local Vet­er­ans for For­eign Wars build­ing, where the What­com Democ­rats are hold­ing their elec­tion night par­ty. The place is packed, and the local estab­lish­ment is out in force. Elect­ed offi­cials, par­ty activists, and polit­i­cal stal­warts are here, includ­ing Belling­ham May­or Kel­li Linville and 40th State Sen­a­tor Kevin Ranker are about, and no mat­ter what hap­pens, it’s going to be a fas­ci­nat­ing night.

[8:03] “It’s going to be a good night”, said Lisa McShane, one of the prin­ci­pals at Lehman McShane Strate­gies, a local polit­i­cal con­sult­ing firm and one of the archi­tects of the pro­gres­sive coun­ty coun­cil slate. The polls have just closed, and every­body is hop­ing the results will jus­ti­fy this prediction.

[8:09] While every­one is wait­ing for the results, Riley Sweeney, local polit­i­cal blog­ger and vice chair of the coun­ty Democ­rats, stood up in front of the crowd to play “Who Said What: A Local Coun­ty Con­ser­v­a­tive Can­di­date or a Nation­al Tea Parti­er”. Maybe oth­er peo­ple could tell, but I could­n’t see much difference.

[8:16] “I just want Ini­tia­tive 522 to pass”, said Edgar Franks, Affir­ma­tive Action Chair for the 40th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict Democ­rats. This just came as statewide ini­tia­tive results start­ed com­ing in for the ini­tia­tive. We still have a long way to go on it, so no doubt these results will switch.

[8:27] Coun­ty results are in! The crowd­ed erupt­ed into applause as the results were read:

Bar­ry Buchanan: 54.81 %
Ken Mann: 55.55%
Weimer: 56.87%
Browne: 54.30%

It’s a momen­tous night indeed, as the pro­gres­sive slate is in a sol­id lead and will like­ly stay there.

[8:28] The cam­paign staff is in tears as the results came out, joy­ful for the end of what has been a gru­el­ing campaign.

[8:35] “I think it means that you can win. If you stand up and fight back, you can win,” said Matt Petrinyi ecsta­t­i­cal­ly about the import of the coun­ty coun­cil elec­tion results. Matt is a local anti-coal activist who devot­ed months of work to the coun­ty campaigns.

[8:55] Mike Estes, chair of the What­com Coun­ty Democ­rats, help­ful­ly explained the role the par­ty played in the cam­paign: “We ear­ly on planned this cam­paign for the four coun­ty races. We raised over 180,000 as the par­ty, and as out­side mon­ey came in, we kept up the ground game and we tried to bring the nation­al con­ver­sa­tion back to here. In these non par­ti­san races we need­ed to label the Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans in the race. As the shut­down hap­pened we were able to label our oppo­si­tion on Tea Par­ty Repub­li­cans. We made this a ref­er­en­dum on Tea Par­ty Repub­li­cans and on cli­mate change.”

Tea Par­ty Repub­li­cans are a dying breed, at least in the north­west corner.

[9:05] “Going to work every­day with such pas­sion­ate, amaz­ing peo­ple, did­n’t make it seem like work,” said Kar­lee Deather­age, field direc­tor for the What­com Wins! cam­paign (which coor­di­nat­ed all four coun­ty coun­cil can­di­dates), and the back­bone of the effort. Work she sure did for the past few months, and tonight it paid off.

[9:16] With pre­lim­i­nary results out and the night one, peo­ple here at the VFW build­ing have start­ed peter­ing out. It seems like no new rev­e­la­tions will come out from the North. We’ll make sure to keep you updat­ed if any­thing note­wor­thy pops up.