The big story in our feeds is obviously the solid win that gave the White House, for a second time, to Donald Trump. It’s a hard thing to look away from, but as we do at RANGE, let’s zoom in to the local counting in some really important regional races are in the works, including for three state initiatives and further counting in a race that could remake the Spokane County Board of Commissioners.
As of today’s 5 pm ballot drop from the Spokane County Elections Office, we now know how most of the local elections will go. So far, Spokane County has a 66.6% voter turnout rate, which keeps ticking up every day as mail-in ballots come in, but is a *lot* lower than the 81.8% turnout rate from the 2020 General Election.
Most local elections we covered have a wide enough margin that the results are not likely to change, but there are still 32,000 votes left to tabulate (not counting those that might still arrive) so things remain a little fuzzy.
The biggest unknown still up in the air is the race to represent District 5 on the Board of County Commissioners between long-time incumbent Al French (R) and Molly Marshall (D), with French holding 51.15% of the vote as of the last count. French leads by fewer than 1300 votes with plenty of votes left to count, but his lead has been slowly growing since election night. Unless there’s a change in that dynamic, French is likely to retain his seat, but it still qualifies as a nail-biter.
For a full breakdown of local elections, scroll!
Local Taxes
Measure 1
Status: Passed
Measure 1 renews a countywide sales tax that has funded the county’s juvenile criminal justice system for nearly 30 years. With a margin of 65.7% votes in favor and fewer than 13% of ballots left to count, it’s pretty easy to call this race. The juvenile justice sales tax will continue at least until December 2035 when it will have to come before voters again.
Proposition 1
Status: Passed
Proposition 1 will create a new city tax of one-tenth of 1% (or just 0.1%) sales and use tax to fund “enhanced community safety.” It has currently won 57.54% of the vote. We don’t know how many of the 32,000 ballots remaining are from inside the city, but we’d need 14,000 more no votes than yes votes for Prop 1 to stall, so it seems pretty safe to say this tax has passed, a victory for Mayor Lisa Brown, who championed the proposition.
“Tonight’s vote represents a collective commitment to our first responders, our courts, and our Ombuds Office,” Brown wrote in a statement. “Proposition 1 will allow us to invest in the much-needed resources our community needs to address our public safety challenges.”
Big Local Races
Spokane County Board of Commissioners, D5: Al French vs. Molly Marshall
Status: Too close to call, but leaning toward French
County Commissioner Al French (R), who’s been a fixture in Spokane County politics for more than two decades, is defending his seat from Latah Valley community organizer Molly Marshall (D) this election. It’s a close race, and at stake is the ideological majority on the Board of County Commissioners, which sits currently at a 3-2 Republican majority. If Marshall were to win, that ratio would flip.
As of the last vote count, French was sitting at 26,002 votes (51.15%) to Marshall’s 2$,728 (48.64 %). A few more than 1,000 votes separate them, but French did widen his lead during the most recent vote count, so it seems likely he will eke it out. Still, we can’t call this one yet.
Congressional District 5: Michael Baumgartner vs. Carmela Conroy
Status: Baumgartner victory
For the first time since Cathy McMorris Rodgers took office in 2005, the race to represent Washington’s 5th Congressional District has no incumbent, meaning someone new will take that seat. Some thought that made the district — held by a Republican since 1995 — more winnable for Democrats, but Carmela Conroy (D) is currently losing to Spokane County Treasurer Michael Baumgartner (R) by *more* than McMorris Rodgers’s 2022 opponent Natasha Hill (D), who lost with 40.3% of the vote.
Baumgartner holds almost exactly 60% of the vote to Conroy’s 39.88%, the seat will remain a Republican stronghold in Washington. Despite this, Conroy has already pledged to run again in two years, even though she was less successful in her run than Hill and Spokane's current mayor Lisa Brown, who ran in 2018.
WA State Representative, D3 Position 1: Natasha Hill vs. Tony Kiepe
Status: Hill victory
Natasha Hill (D) and Tony Kiepe (R) were vying to fill the first House of Representatives position in Washington’s 3rd Legislative District, left vacant by incumbent Marcus Riccelli who is currently running for a seat in the Washington Senate. In their primary race, Ben Stuckart (D) pulled almost one-third of the votes, which left folks wondering if his voters would choose the other Democrat in the race or gravitate towards Kiepe.
Last night’s election results made the answer clear: while Kiepe picked up a few percentage points, Hill holds a lead of 58.79% of votes in the district. Kiepe is shaving fractions of points off what the lead was on election night, but the gap is almost 12,000 votes. Hill looks like the clear victor in this race — and likely the first Black woman and person of color to represent Eastern Washington in this seat.
WA State Senate, D4: Leonard Christian vs. Miguel Valencia
Status: Christian victory
Miguel Valencia (D), a law student and a veteran, or Leonard Christian (R), also a veteran and a state representative, were running to fill the state senate position for Washington District 4, which covers from Spokane Valley and Liberty Lake to Camden in Pend Oreille County.
Christian, who emerged from a crowded Republican primary field, won a decisive 64.25% of the vote to defeat the more progressive Valencia.
Statewide Initiatives
Initiative 2117
Status: Failed
One of the citizen-led initiatives from Let’s Go Washington on the ballot this November was Initiative 2117, which would have repealed Washington’s Climate Commitment Act (CCA), getting rid of the state’s cap-and-trade program and forbidding any future cap-and-trade programs to limit carbon emissions.
With 61.94% of voters casting “no” votes, this initiative has failed, so Washington’s cap-and-trade program will live to see another day.
Initiative 2124
Status: Likely failed
Another citizen-led ballot initiative sought to amend the Washington Cares Act — which created a tax to fund a public long-term care insurance program that provides older, injured or disabled people up to $36,500 to pay for long-term care services and needs — to let workers opt out of paying in.
We aren’t putting an official call on this one yet, but we think this initiative will likely fail as well, with current vote counts showing 55.34% of the state voted against the initiative.
Initiative 2109
Status: Failed
A third citizen-led ballot initiative sought to repeal Washington’s capital gains tax — which raises hundreds of millions of dollars for education and is only paid by fewer than one-tenth of 1 percent of people — is set to fail by the largest margin of all the initiatives.
Preserving the tax, 63.69% of voters cast ballots against the initiative.
Initiative 2066
Status: Too close to call, but likely passed
The fourth citizen-led initiative would handcuff utilities and local governments to natural/fossil gas, forcing them to continue providing access to the fossil fuel as an option for eligible customers. This is the closest of all ballot initiatives. With over 3 million votes cast statewide, it is currently passing with only about 85,000 votes, or 51.4% of the vote.
This will likely pass by a slim margin but with a few days left to count ballots, it’s possible it could swing the other way and is definitely a race to keep an eye on.
Editor's Note: This story has been updated to account for Dave Wilson, the 2020 Democratic candidate for Congressional District 5 who ran against Cathy McMorris Rodgers and received only 38.5% of the vote.
