Serving Franklin County, WA
Serving Franklin County, WA
Inslee and Culp advance to November general election
A preliminary analysis of gubernatorial ballots show voters statewide prefer Republican candidates. However, in eight Western Washington counties, voters prefer Democrats.
REPUBLIC - It's too little, too late.
Regardless, a Monday, Aug. 10, report from the Secretary of State's Office shows Republican gubernatorial frontrunner Loren Culp picking up another Western Washington county - Grays Harbor - in last week's primary election.
Meanwhile, he ceded a smaller county to another conservative candidate, Raul Garcia, who now claims two counties.
While the shift in counties continues to narrow the gap, it won't make any difference in the outcome of the primary.
Ballots are still being counted from the Aug. 4 all-mail election because of additional time needed to verify ballots as well as delays caused by putting a ballot in the mail at the last-minute.
In Monday's statewide count, Grays Harbor County jumped from the Inslee to Culp, with the Republican police chief winning the county by less than 200 votes.
Culp has 7,761 votes (40.01%) in that county; Inslee has 7,586 votes (39.1%).
In Adams County, the win moved from Culp to Garcia, with Inslee a distant third.
There, Garcia has 1,022 votes (31.39%) and Culp has 993 votes (30.5%).
Monday's statewide count shows Republicans continuing to slightly narrow the gap between conservative challengers and the incumbent Democrat Inslee.
Inslee, however, still has an insurmountable lead statewide with more than 50% of votes in his favor.
Monday's tally shows Inslee with 1,139, 141 votes (50.6%).
The top Republican, Culp, is in second place with 384,070 votes (17.06%). He is followed by fellow conservatives Joshua Freed with 198,838 (8.83%), Tim Eyman with 147,000 (6.53%) and Garcia with 119,202 (5.3%).
None of the remaining candidates broke the 5% mark.
Broken down by county, Inslee has won 26 of the state's 39 counties and Culp has 11. Garcia won the remaining two.
But, due to the number of conservative candidates in the field of gubernatorial hopefuls, the county breakdown doesn't show how close the battle for governor really is.
Democrats picked up 52.5% of the preliminary tally, while Republicans grabbed about 44.6%.
The remaining 2.9% of the vote went to independents, and candidates of other non-traditional parties, such as the Green or Propertarianist parties.
In comparing the Democrat vs. Republican county take, conservative candidates dominated the count.
Demcrats held more than 50% of the vote in eight counties - all in Western Washington.
Looking at the preliminary tally, Island, Jefferson, King, Kitsap, San Juan, Snohomish, Thurston and Whatcom counties are leaning to the left.
The remaining 31 counties in the state are all leaning to the right, with several counties that could tip either way with more ballots.
Pacific, Pierce, Skagit, Spokane and Whitman counties had nearly as many Democrats vote in the primary as Republicans.
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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