Olympia City Council incumbents show strength in initial primary election returns
Olympia City Council incumbents pulled ahead of their opponents in early primary election returns.
Here’s a look at results of the three races where the field of candidates will be narrowed to two for the November general election.
Olympia City Council, Position No. 4
Incumbent Clark Gilman leads the race for Position No. 4 with 49% of the early tallies, or 5,034 votes. Carlson, a retired community corrections officer, was poised to enter the general election alongside Gilman with 38.7% of the tallies, or 3,973 votes.
The third candidate, Michael A. Marstrom, had just 1,232 votes as of Wednesday, and is likely to drop off the November ballot.
None of the candidates could be reached for comment Tuesday.
Olympia City Council, Position No. 6
Incumbent Robert Vanderpool was far ahead of his opponents, according to preliminary results, with 48% of early tallies, or 4,909 votes. Justin Stang, a policy analyst with the Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association, received 29.2%, or 2,982 votes.
Vanderpool was unable to be immediately reached for comment.
Stang said he feels good about the results, but he understands that they’re preliminary.
“More votes will come in and get tallied, and we’re really proud of the work we’ve done on our end, and we’re really excited about being able to continue on and connect with voters, and we’re really looking forward to the opportunity to get out and meet more people and make our case for Olympia,” he said.
Darleen Simkins, who works for the Business Development Program at the state Parks and Recreation Commission, received 13.4% of the vote. Simkins said she’s anxious to see if the results change as more ballots are counted. Dana Tan received 9.1%.
Simkins said she’s really grateful to be in the race and to have a chance to make change, and to have heard from so many neighbors about important issues in the city.
“Obviously, I’m hoping the results will improve for me at this point, but I am excited to see how the election goes when we have the final result in,” Simkins said.
Olympia City Council, Position No. 7
Paul Berendt, former chairman of the Washington State Democratic Party, had received 51.7% of the votes tallied by Wednesday, and is the front runner to replace Jim Cooper, who is not running for re-election.
Caleb Gieger, who was most recently an assistant attorney general at the Washington State Office of the Attorney General, received 43.2%, or 4,359 votes, and will be the second candidate on the November ballot if the remaining voter returns follow the same trend
David Wenzel, the third candidate, had received 446 votes as of Wednesday, and won’t advance.
Berendt said he is pleased he broke 50% and has an eight-point lead, which he said by any standard will hold up with the rest of the votes that have yet to be counted. He said it was a low turnout election, but he thinks a lot more people will be participating in November.
“I personally believe in voter contact, and so in the next three months, I intend to hit the streets again and knock on doors and talk to voters and really engage with them,” he said.
He said a number of issues came to the forefront during the primaries, the main one being tackling homelessness with compassion.
“Affordability is a real issue in the city that I think we’re going to hear a lot more about in the coming months, leading up to November,” he said. “And affordability means a lot of different things, certainly housing affordability, rental affordability, but also food affordability and the cost of everything are going up. And so people really want to engage on these issues, and that’s one of the things I’ve been doing at the door.”
Geiger said he’s feeling pretty optimistic and positive about the results so far, especially as a first-time candidate. He said he’s supported the Workers’ Bill of Rights from the beginning of its inception, and he thinks it’s just the beginning of folks realizing it’s time to get behind it and support workers.
He said moving forward, one of the priorities in his campaign will be to center workers and renters.
“You know, Olympia is such a wonderful place to live,” he said. “The workers who work here, who provide the services in our community, you know, who are bagging our groceries, who are serving our coffee, who are changing our tires, who are driving our buses — they deserve livable conditions. And that’s what we’re going to deliver, and that’s what we’re going to be campaigning on through the general (election).”
This story was originally published August 5, 2025 at 9:33 PM.
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