Serving Franklin County, WA
Serving Franklin County, WA
Freed shows in King County, Garcia in Adams and Garfield
REPUBLIC — Despite more than three dozen candidates in the gubernatorial field, only two divided up the state's 39 counties in the initial tally of the Aug. 4 primary election.
After counting more than 1.2 million ballots statewide Tuesday night, incumbent Gov. Jay Inslee, D-Bainbridge Island, and challenger Police Chief Loren Culp, R-Republic, won counties.
Inslee amassed 51.86% of the statewide vote enroute to leading the crowded field in 27 counties.
Culp, an rural upstart who jumped into the race after Inslee pushed to strip 2nd Amendment rights last year, leads in 12 counties with a combined 16.74% of the vote.
The largest factor in the race, so far, is Inslee's win of 70.34% of all votes counted Tuesday in King County. That's almost three times as many votes as the rest of the field combined received in King County.
Republican Joshua Freed of Bothell finished a distance second there with only 6.51%. That was Freed's only second place finish anywhere in the state.
Culp only managed 4.69% in King County.
Dr. Raul Garcia, another Republican in the field, came up with second place finishes in two counties — Adams and Garfield.
Culp is edging Garcia, 31.31% to 29.78% in Adams County and 27.32% to 23.39% in Garfield.
Inslee came up short in those counties, with only 17.39% in Adams and in 18.39% Garfield.
Culp's strongest showing in Eastern Washington was 57.94% in Ferry County, his home county. West of the Cascades, he posted 53.57%, more than double the percentage Inslee received there.
Inslee's strongest showings came in King County in Western Washington. His best tally in Eastern Washington was in Spokane County, where he receive 43.32%, just slightly above Whitman County with 43.08%.
More than 1.25 million ballots have already been counted in the gubernatorial race.
That's an initial turnout of 27.42% statewide, leaving a possible 3.3 million more votes that could be counted.
Late-arriving ballots will continued to be counted this week.
Roger Harnack is the co-owner/publisher of Free Press Publishing. Having grown up Benton City, Roger is an award-winning journalist, photographer, editor and publisher. He's one of only two editorial/commentary writers from Washington state to ever receive the international Golden Quill. Roger is dedicated to the preservation of local media, and the voice it retains for Eastern Washington.
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