Most of Washington’s thirty-nine counties have just finished tabulating a fresh batch of ballots, and there is significant news to report in the 1st Congressional District: Republican Pedro Celis, who national and state Republican officials recruited to challenge incumbent Suzan DelBene, has now moved into second place after having trailed another Republican, Robert Sutherland, for two days.
Celis is getting a significant boost from King County, where he is ahead of fellow Republicans Sutherland and John Orlinski. Sutherland leads Celis in Snohomish County, while Orlinski leads both in Skagit County. (Readers should note that the 1st Congressional District only encompasses portions of each county).
As of yesterday, Celis was at 15.49% with 14,992 votes. Today, he improved to 16.37%. His total now stands at 18,814 votes. Sutherland is now at 15.63% with 17,974 votes (eight hundred and forty behind Celis).
Incumbent Suzan DelBene remains in first place with more than fifty percent of the vote overall. Percentage-wise, she lost a little ground in today’s count, but not much… she’s still in great shape for November.
If the trend holds Celis’ campaign will be able to continue on to the general; there was speculation Celis might not survive the winnowing election. He needed to at least make up ground today, but he did better than that… he moved into second place. There are ballots still left to be counted, so he can’t celebrate just yet, but his campaign undoubtedly is relieved after having been behind in the first two counts.
The campaign has not updated its website, Facebook page, or Twitter feed yet, but if we get a statement from them we’ll update this post.
2 Comments
Please don’t let Boehner’s publicity stunt law suit go unchallenged. Please, NPI, SUE CONGRESS. Sue them for dereliction of duty, lack of governance and accepting a full salary while accomplishing virtually nothing.
Yes, such a suit is unlikely to go very far BUT it will mock Boehner in a way nothing else would.
Celis squeaks on through. Not an impressive performance. This is the best guy the Republicans could find?