State Senator Liz Lovelett leads in 40th LD special election, trailed by Daniel Miller

Recent­ly appoint­ed State Sen­a­tor Liz Lovelett (D‑40th Dis­trict: Ana­cortes) appears to be in a good posi­tion to defend her seat in the 40th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict, which includes San Juan Coun­ty and por­tions of What­com and Skag­it Counties.

Lovelett joined the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate in Feb­ru­ary, a few weeks after Demo­c­ra­t­ic State Sen­a­tor Kevin Ranker abrupt­ly resigned. Ranker stepped down fol­low­ing alle­ga­tions that he harassed a female employee.

Assum­ing she wins, Lovelett will again have to defend the seat again in a year when the posi­tion is nor­mal­ly con­test­ed. (State Sen­ate terms are for four years; the 40th LD elects its sen­a­tor in pres­i­den­tial cycles.)

Before serv­ing as State Sen­a­tor, Lovelett was on the Ana­cortes City Coun­cil, rep­re­sent­ing an at large posi­tion, Posi­tion #6, since 2013.

Lovelett’s chal­lengers are Daniel Miller, a Fri­day Har­bor Repub­li­can; Gre­ta Aitken, a Burling­ton Demo­c­rat; and Car­rie Black­wood, a Belling­ham Democrat.

Although she was a new­com­er to the Wash­ing­ton Leg­is­la­ture this year, six of Lovelett’s bills passed the State House and Sen­ate before mov­ing on to the Governor’s desk, includ­ing HB 2119, which pro­tects Blan­chard Moun­tain from log­ging and SB 5918, which intro­duced orca safe­ty edu­ca­tion in boat licens­ing. Lovelett is hop­ing to return to Olympia to work on fight­ing pollution.

As of 8:48 PM, Lovelett had 6,125 votes in her col­umn. Black­wood was in sec­ond place with 3,876 votes, and Daniel Miller trailed in third place with 3,258 votes.

At that point, Skag­it Coun­ty had not report­ed any results at all.

Short­ly before 10 PM, Skag­it Coun­ty belat­ed­ly report­ed its first results. Lovelett remains in first place, but there has been a lead change for sec­ond. Repub­li­can Daniel Miller is now ahead of Blackwood. 

Here’s how the num­bers break down as of 9:50 PM:

• Lovelett (incum­bent): 47.16%
• Miller (Repub­li­can chal­lenger): 29.62%
• Black­wood (Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lenger): 20.58%
• Aitken (Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lenger): 1.55%
• Write-in: 0.25%

Black­wood, also a Demo­c­rat, is run­ning for office for the first time and is cur­rent­ly a lawyer in Belling­ham, spe­cial­iz­ing in work­place law.

If elect­ed, Black­wood hopes to address income inequal­i­ty, as well as the cli­mate cri­sis. She sup­ports pro­gres­sive tax reform and a high­er min­i­mum wage.

Black­wood is backed by the Young Democ­rats of Wash­ing­ton and the Riv­et­ers Col­lec­tive, as well as a few unions.

As men­tioned, the top two vote get­ters from this elec­tion will move on to the Novem­ber 5th gen­er­al elec­tion, with the win­ner serv­ing through 2020.