So, how did things go?
For Washington State, surprisingly well. The Red Wave/Tide/Tsunami that the media was intoning about failed to materialize to a great degree. The Republicans made some advances on the national scale, which is to be expected in an off-year election, but in Washington State they hit a wall, and actually lost ground. The best news is that it looks like the Election Denier wing of the GOP took the worst hits, and will hopefully be replaced with more reasonable candidates in the future.
Election denial has struck me as a tough sell as far as an election campaign - "These elections are bogus! It's all a fraud! Please vote for me anyway!".
And in a land where a three-percentage point margin is usually considered a landslide and a mandate to govern, a lot of the candidates and measures not only beat the spread, but did so in handy numbers.
In any event, the numbers quoted are as of Thursday night, but it looks like most of them will hold as the late results come in (which tend to trend more liberal in any event). There is only one measure that is "hanging fire" right now, and ironically, it is one about how to vote.
So. How did things go?
Advisory Vote No. 39 Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 5974 and Advisory Vote No. 40 Engrossed Substitute House Bill 2076 - Both REPEALED (by 59%-40% in one, 53-47 in the other). These are Advisory Votes and have no bearing on the bills as passed other than saying we are disappointed in you for doing so. I really think we need to either give these things some teeth, or get them off the ballot entirely.
Charter Amendment No. 1 Even-Numbered Election Years for Certain County Offices - YES, by overwhelming numbers (69-31). As a game designer, I will attempt to run for office/launch an initiative in odd-numbered years, but then I'm just going to cheese the system.
Proposition No. 1 Conservation Futures Levy - overwhelmingly Approved (68-31), which is nice.
United States Senator - Patty Murray wins handily (57-43). Man, there was a media kerfuffle about how close this was going to be. Turns out that running against King County (where a third of the state's voters live) was not a winning strategy. Go figure.
United States Representative Congressional District No. 9 - Adam Smith (71-29). This was an honest-to-gosh wipe-out, and I've seen nothing in the press about the depth of this wipe-out.
Secretary of State - Steve Hobbs (49.7-46.7 with 3.6% write-ins). This would have been much closer if not for write-in campaign by the organized GOP in the state, which bled off enough votes to really make a difference. Now the organized state GOP is blaming the media for actually POINTING OUT that the GOP was running their own candidate. Though really, this is a good argument for Ranked Choice Voting and Approval Voting, as it turns out.
Legislative District No. 11 Representative Position 1 - David Hackney (69-31)
Legislative District No. 11 Representative Position 2 - Steve Bergquist (68-32)
King County Prosecuting Attorney - Leesa Manion (56-44). Oddly, I missed this race in the summary, but I will catch up here.
And on the Stuff I'm Not Voting on(TM)?
Changing up how Seattle votes for particular offices is actually one of those where the votes are close, and the winner may change after all the votes are counted. Right now, enacting the change is losing by a thin margin (49-51), but may catch up in further voting. BUT if they do change, RCV is smoking the more easily understood Approval Voting (75-25).
And up in the 8th US House race, Kim Schrier is winning handily (52-47) over her Extremist GOP opponent, in a race that everyone said was also going to be a nail-biter. While down in the 11th US House, I am delighted to note that Marie Glusenkamp Perez has shown the election-denying MAGA candidate the door (also 52-47). Yeah, the 11th is considered a conservative district, but it looks like voters will be actually be willing to wait for a reasonable conservative.
And in the 47th State Rep (which includes much of Kent), Claudia Kaufmann is doing well (43-47). Her opposition gave me a robo-call late election day (note: I cannot vote in that race, so next time, just send me the money you would normally spend on such nonsense), where he did himself no favors by endorsing the Republican Senatorial candidate.
And I will note that the same media that embraced the whole "Red Wave" thing are now embracing the "Trump is gornisht, the GOP is in disarray" meme. These were the same outlets that said the Seahawks would be lucky to win three games this year. So yeah, I'm not buying that, either.
And with that, The Political Desk slouches off to the bar to have a few drinks and a good lie-down. See you next election.
More later,
