Election results were certified Tuesday by counties, and one race in South King County narrowly avoided what looked a day earlier like a potential hand recount.
Covington Republican Rep. Mark Hargrove's lead over Democrat Bud Sizemore grew to 157 votes on the final day, avoiding the manual recount that would have been triggered at less than 150 votes and 0.25 percent of both candidates' totals. Instead, there will be a recount by machine on Friday.
There will, however, be hand recounts in Clark County -- where Sen. Don Benton has already declared victory on Facebook, saying he won despite "the onslaught of negative lies unleashed by the Democrat’s amoral campaign machine" and predicting that "a coalition seeking a philosophical majority for smaller government has a real chance of now forming in the Senate."
The Columbian has the details on the counts in the 17th District.
A couple other House races were especially close, but not close enough for recounts.
Linda Kochmar defeated Roger Flygare by 655 votes in the 30th district spanning South King County and Milton to snatch a seat for Republicans, the one left vacant by Democrat Mark Miloscia's departure. And in an intra-Republican Party contest in central Washington, Brad Hawkins unseated Rep. Mike Armstrong, the top Republican on the Transportation Committee, by 933 votes.
