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.

Saturday, December 3rd, 2022

Clyde Shavers prevails in 10th LD House race; recount not expected to change results

This week, the count­ing phase of the 2022 midterm elec­tion in Wash­ing­ton came to an end, and the final results con­firmed that Democ­rats have suc­ceed­ed in enlarg­ing their major­i­ty in the state House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives by one seat with chal­lenger Clyde Shavers’ vic­to­ry over Repub­li­can incum­bent Greg Gilday.

Gil­day is one of two Repub­li­cans cur­rent­ly rep­re­sent­ing the 10th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict, which includes all of Island Coun­ty, south­west Skag­it Coun­ty, and a slice of north­east Sno­homish Coun­ty. The oth­er is Sen­a­tor Ron Muzzall.

The dis­tric­t’s oth­er House seat has been held for sev­er­al cycles by Demo­c­rat Dave Paul, who won reelec­tion by a rea­son­ably com­fort­able margin.

In the con­test with Gil­day, Shavers received a nar­row major­i­ty of the vote (51.91%) in the ini­tial round of Washington’s two-part gen­er­al elec­tion sys­tem, sur­pass­ing Gil­day, who received 47.94% of the vote.

Shavers seemed head­ed for vic­to­ry last month too. But his prospects took a hit when Gil­day’s cam­paign pub­lished a let­ter from Shavers’ father alleg­ing that he embell­ished his resume. Despite Repub­li­can attempts to exploit the alle­ga­tions for polit­i­cal gain, Shavers won. The results indi­cate that vot­ers were accept­ing of Shavers’ apol­o­gy and believe in his abil­i­ty to rep­re­sent the dis­trict in Olympia.

In a vic­to­ry state­ment pub­lished on his web­site, Shavers remarked: “I believe that vot­ers from all walks of life came togeth­er to reject today’s divi­sive pol­i­tics and to build toward a kinder, more com­pas­sion­ate future. We saw that hope and faith is stronger than neg­a­tiv­i­ty and tear­ing oth­ers down.”

“I look for­ward to ful­ly ded­i­cat­ing myself to the peo­ple of the 10th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict – to the fam­i­lies strug­gling to make ends meet, vet­er­ans con­tin­u­ing to serve their com­mu­ni­ty, farm­ers and farm­work­ers feed­ing us and the world, teach­ers and admin­is­tra­tors inspir­ing our chil­dren, and pub­lic safe­ty and health­care work­ers pro­tect­ing us each and every day.”

“Your sup­port through­out this cam­paign has been unpar­al­leled,” Shavers told his sup­port­ers. “Thank you so much for all that you offered – your time, your dona­tions, and your words of encour­age­ment. Our hard work paid off.”

“I want to con­grat­u­late Rep­re­sen­ta­tive-elect Clyde Shavers on his win and know he will do an excel­lent job serv­ing the 10th Dis­trict in Olympia,” said Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty Chair Tina Pod­lodows­ki.

“Clyde has been a ded­i­cat­ed life­long pub­lic ser­vant who has worked to make peo­ples’ lives bet­ter in both his own com­mu­ni­ty and across the world. Wash­ing­ton Democ­rats con­tact­ed 48,000 vot­ers in the 10th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict and were proud to play a crit­i­cal role in win­ning this very close election.”

“We are excit­ed that Clyde will join a leg­is­la­ture with an expand­ed Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty, and one that is the most diverse in our state’s history.”

Shavers’ final lead at cer­ti­fi­ca­tion was just 211 votes.

While this key leg­isla­tive race has been con­sid­ered too close to call through the count­ing peri­od, there are no out­stand­ing bal­lots left to count.

Shavers won Island Coun­ty with 53.5% (a dif­fer­ence of near­ly 3,100) and Skag­it Coun­ty with 56.5% (a dif­fer­ence of near­ly 1,200). Gil­day won Sno­homish Coun­ty with 59.2% of the vote (a dif­fer­ence of about 4,150).

Although the out­come is not expect­ed to change, the con­test now heads to a machine recount. Under state law, a recount is manda­to­ry if the dif­fer­ence between two can­di­dates is few­er than 2,000 votes and less than .5%.

Shavers’s 50.1% is only .2 per­cent­age points ahead of Gilday’s 49.9% and only 211 votes sep­a­rate the can­di­dates, so a recount is necessary.

The recount will be a machine count and it should not take long to complete.

The Skag­it Coun­ty Can­vass­ing Board has already sched­uled a spe­cial meet­ing for this com­ing Mon­day to set a date and time for the recount.

Island Coun­ty plans to recount bal­lots in this race on Mon­day, Decem­ber 12th.

“The machine recount for Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict #10, Posi­tion 1 race will take place in the Elec­tions Office begin­ning at 9:00 a.m. on Mon­day, Decem­ber 12th,” a notice pub­lished by Island Coun­ty Elec­tions explained. “This recount is expect­ed to be com­plet­ed in one day and will be cer­ti­fied by the Can­vass­ing Board at their meet­ing on Tues­day, Decem­ber 13th, 2022 at 9:00 a.m. The recounts will take place in the Elec­tions Office at 400 N. Main St. in Coupeville.”

Sno­homish Coun­ty Elec­tions has also cho­sen the 12th as its recount day.

Gil­day’s defeat leaves the Repub­li­can cau­cus with just forty mem­bers. There are nine­ty-eight seats in the Wash­ing­ton State House of Representatives.

Democ­rats have held a major­i­ty in the cham­ber since the turn of the century.

The clos­est Repub­li­cans have come to a major­i­ty in recent cycles was in the 2014 and 2016 elec­tions, when they were able to win forty-eight seats.

In 2018, Democ­rats won fifty-sev­en seats, a feat they repeat­ed in 2020. Hav­ing now won fifty-eight seats in what was sup­posed to be a “red wave” year, the par­ty has showed that it is well posi­tioned to con­tin­ue its elec­toral dom­i­nance in leg­isla­tive elec­tions. It can do well in midterms regard­less of whether a Repub­li­can or Demo­c­rat is in the White House as well as in pres­i­den­tial years.

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  1. […] His vic­to­ry is expect­ed to be con­firmed by a recount set to take place on Decem­ber 12th. […]

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