Carol Gregory, Teri Hickel in dead heat in 30th Legislative District beauty contest

The mar­quee race of 2015, which will take place this Novem­ber in the 30th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict between Demo­c­rat Car­ol Gre­go­ry and Repub­li­can Teri Hick­el, is shap­ing up to be tighter than tight, if tonight’s results are any indication.

State law requires that par­ti­san races appear on the Top Two bal­lot, even when few­er than three can­di­dates file, which is the case in the 30th this year.

Con­se­quent­ly, Gre­go­ry and Hick­el are squar­ing off in what amounts to a beau­ty con­test or a straw poll. Both can­di­dates are guar­an­teed to move on to Novem­ber regard­less of what hap­pens in this elec­tion — nobody is being elim­i­nat­ed — but the results will sig­nif­i­cant­ly shape how peo­ple per­ceive the race.

With less than 11,000 bal­lots count­ed so far, Gre­go­ry trails Hick­el by just one hun­dred and fifty-five votes… a clas­sic dead heat. She has 5,433 votes (49.30%) to Hick­el’s 5,588 votes (50.70%). There are also a hand­ful of write-in votes.

Because the 2015 leg­isla­tive ses­sion ran so late (there were three spe­cial ses­sions, run­ning well into July!) Gre­go­ry has­n’t been able to do much cam­paign­ing. She has only been free to focus on knock­ing on doors and mak­ing phone calls for a few weeks, where­as Hick­el has been free to cam­paign vig­or­ous­ly for months.

Gre­go­ry was appoint­ed last win­ter by Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee to suc­ceed the late Roger Free­man, who died just before the Novem­ber 2014 midterm elec­tions took place. He was posthu­mous­ly elect­ed, and upon cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of the elec­tion, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty held a spe­cial cau­cus of precinct com­mit­tee offi­cers in the 30th to draw up a list of names to suc­ceed him and fill the vacancy.

Car­ol was the first choice of the 30th’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic PCOs, and was tapped by Inslee for the posi­tion after the King and Pierce Coun­ty coun­cils failed to agree to make a joint appoint­ment with­in the six­ty day time­frame pre­scribed by the Constitution.

Though Gre­go­ry would undoubt­ed­ly pre­fer to be in the lead, she at least isn’t sev­er­al per­cent­age points behind Hick­el. Depend­ing on how the late bal­lots break, she may be able to make up ground on Hick­el and be in an even bet­ter posi­tion by the time the elec­tion is cer­ti­fied in a cou­ple of weeks.

One thing is for sure: the 30th will be fierce­ly con­test­ed this Novem­ber. Democ­rats are eager to defend Car­ol and hold the seat, while Repub­li­cans are anx­ious to take it and reduce the House Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty to a wafer-thin mar­gin of one vote.