NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate provides the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Friday, May 21st, 2021

WA Filing Week 2021 has ended: A look at who’s filed in key races as of Friday evening

Fil­ing Week 2021 is in the books!

Since Mon­day morn­ing of this week, the Sec­re­tary of State and coun­ty elec­tions offi­cials have been accept­ing for­mal dec­la­ra­tions of can­di­da­cy from Wash­ing­to­ni­ans who have decid­ed they want to run for office at the local level.

As of this evening, can­di­date fil­ing has closed. There will be a spe­cial can­di­date fil­ing peri­od next week for posi­tions sub­ject to elec­tion that did­n’t attract any can­di­dates dur­ing the reg­u­lar five day fil­ing win­dow we just held.

This is an odd num­bered year, which means that cities and char­ter coun­ties like King and Sno­homish will have leg­isla­tive and exec­u­tive posi­tions on the bal­lot, along with some judi­cial posi­tions. School dis­tricts, ports, and oth­er local gov­ern­ments across the state will also be hold­ing elec­tions this year.

This post is the last in a series of reports that began on Mon­day. We’ll have one more Fil­ing Week report next week to recap the can­di­date withdrawals. 

Browse candidate filings by county

Coun­ties are list­ed in order of pop­u­la­tion, not alphabetically

KingPierceSno­homishSpokaneClark
ThurstonKit­sapYaki­maWhat­comBen­ton
Skag­itCowlitzGrantFranklinIsland
LewisClal­lamChelanGrays Har­borMason
Wal­la WallaWhit­manKit­ti­tasStevensDou­glas
OkanoganJef­fer­sonAsotinPacif­icKlick­i­tat
AdamsSan JuanPend OreilleSka­ma­niaLin­coln
Fer­ryWahki­akumColum­biaGarfield

Notable filings

  • Seat­tle: City Attor­ney Pete Holmes now has two oppo­nents: pub­lic defend­er Nicole Thomas-Kennedy and Repub­li­can Ann Davi­son, who unsuc­cess­ful­ly ran for Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor last year. The may­oral race, mean­while, now has a total of fif­teen candidates.
  • King Coun­ty Coun­cil: The Repub­li­can coun­cilmem­bers (Kathy Lam­bert, Pete von Reich­bauer, and Rea­gan Dunn) each drew mul­ti­ple oppo­nents, while the Demo­c­ra­t­ic coun­cilmem­bers (Rod Dem­bows­ki, Dave Upthe­grove) only drew one oppo­nent each. Vot­ers will need to win­now the field in Posi­tions #3, #7, and #9 for the gen­er­al election.
  • Seat­tle Port Com­mis­sion (King Coun­ty): Incum­bent Com­mis­sion­er Ryan Calkins has drawn an oppo­nent, Nor­man Z. Sigler. The oth­er incum­bent Com­mis­sion­ers Peter Stein­brueck and Stephanie Bow­man already had one oppo­nent each. Because no one else filed for Port in any of the three races, we already know what the gen­er­al elec­tion matchups will be.
  • Red­mond: Incum­bent Coun­cilmem­ber Tani­ka Pad­hye did not file for reelec­tion, guar­an­tee­ing that at least one new coun­cilmem­ber will be join­ing Red­mond’s leg­isla­tive branch at the end of this year. Vying to suc­ceed Pad­hye are Melis­sa Stu­art, who filed on Mon­day, Den­nis Ellis, and Jack­son Fields, son of Coun­cilmem­ber Steve Fields.
  • Belle­vue: NPI sup­port­er Ruth Lip­scomb has entered the race for Posi­tion #4, chal­leng­ing Jared Nieuwen­huis, while Car­lota Wil­hite has with­drawn. Nieuwen­huis is one of the coun­cil’s most right wing members.

Sev­er­al juris­dic­tions end­ed up with­out any con­test­ed races at all. Car­na­tion, Enum­claw, Hunts Point, and Cov­ing­ton are a few examples.

Sim­i­lar­ly, there won’t be any con­test­ed judi­cial races in King Coun­ty this year, as none of the judge­ships drew more than one candidate.

Upcoming deadlines and important dates

Fil­ing Week is over. Here are the next three fil­ing-relat­ed impor­tant deadlines:

The Top Two elec­tion will begin in July, with bal­lots expect­ed to land around July 16th. Vot­ing will con­clude on Tues­day, August 3rd at 8 PM.

Adjacent posts

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