Early results hold up in Thurston primary with biggest turnout in nearly 30 years
With a mere 25 ballots left to process, initial tallies in the Aug. 4 primary election in Thurston County appear to have held up, with no major shifts in local races.
The election drew the largest local voter turnout for a primary in nearly three decades, reflecting a statewide trend and prompting elections officials to forecast a historic turnout in the general election Nov. 3.
The primary election results are scheduled to be certified Tuesday, Aug. 18. Complete results of all local races can be found on the Thurston County Auditor’s election website. For results of statewide and congressional races, go to the Secretary of State’s election and voting site.
The top two vote getters in each primary race advance to the November ballot; the final two candidates can be from the same party.
22nd Legislative District
It’s been clear since initial results were released Aug. 4 that former Lacey Police Chief Dusty Pierpoint and Olympia Mayor pro tem Jessica Bateman would be the two contenders to move on to the Nov. 3 general election in the race for the open state House of Representatives seat in Washington’s 22nd Legislative District.
With just 12 votes separating the candidates in initial results, who would come out on top was unclear.
Since election night, Bateman briefly jumped ahead of Pierpoint, the lone Republican in the field, in results released Aug. 5, then she settled back into a second-place position. As of Friday, she was claiming 33% of the vote to Pierpoint’s 35.4%, and 1,389 votes separated the two.
Mary Ellen Biggerstaff, a nurse practitioner endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, had gathered 13.5% of votes, followed by social worker and Colville Tribes member Glenda Breiler, who had earned 12.7%, and wildlife biologist Anthony Novack with 5.2%.
Thurston County Superior Court
In the race for the Thurston County Superior Court seat left vacant by retiring judge Anne Hirsch, Sharonda Amamilo expanded her dominant, early lead over three other candidates. As of Friday, Amamilo had claimed 45.2% of the vote, while second place still belonged to 15-year Olympia Municipal Court Judge Scott Ahlf, who had 23.8%.
Local attorney and Superior Court judge pro tem Jonathan A. Sprouffske has moved to third place with 15.5% of votes, while David M. Hankins, who has worked in the state Attorney General’s Office for decades, had earned 15.2%.
Thurston County Commission
The tightest local contest has been for the second-place spot in the race for county commissioner in District 1. Democratic candidate Carolina Mejia has grown her commanding early lead in that contest, claiming 32.2% of votes in the seven-candidate race.
Republican candidate C Davis has maintained his second-place showing since election night, tallying 18.1% of votes, while former District 3 Commissioner and independent candidate Bud Blake had claimed 17.6%.
At the contest’s tightest point Aug. 7, Blake was within 75 votes of catching Davis, but he’s since fallen 163 votes behind.
Incumbent Commissioner John Hutchings came in fourth, with 14.1% of the vote, trailed by Democratic candidates David Gaw with 8.5%, Rory Summerson with 7%, and Thomas Bolender, who stated no party preference, with 2.5%.
The close race between Davis and Blake wasn’t close enough to trigger a recount under state law. A machine recount is triggered when the difference between two candidates is less than 2,000 votes and less than 1/2 of 1% of the total number of votes cast for both candidates, and requirements for a hand recount are even narrower.
Friday afternoon, Blake told The Olympian he considers coming in third in the race “a setback,” and that he plans to run for office again in the future. He said he had policies he was looking forward to bringing to the table, specifically regarding mental health and substance abuse.
In his view, what will be missing from the general election race is “experience.” When he was elected in District 3, he said, it took him a year to learn the ropes.
“Experience matters, and exposure matters,” Blake said. “So that’s what’s going to be missing, and it’s needed at a county level.”
But, he wished the remaining candidates his best, saying “the people choose the best candidate to represent them.”
Only residents in districts with commission seats up for election voted in the primary, but all of Thurston County will weigh in on the commission candidates come November.
Another commission race, in District 2, will also appear on general election ballots with the same two candidates on the primary ballot.
Incumbent Commissioner Gary Edwards has stayed ahead of Lacey City Council member Michael Steadman in that two-candidate race, gathering 57.1% of votes, meaning he’ll appear first on November ballots.
The biggest local primary turnout in decades
Voter turnout hit 56.5%, with 107,450 of 190,202 registered Thurston County voters casting ballots, according to the county Auditor’s Office. There were just 25 ballots left to count before results are certified Tuesday.
In 2016, the most recent presidential election year, county primary turnout just barely topped 37%. The only state primary when it’s been higher than this year in the last three decades was in 1992, when just over 57% of 86,933 Thurston voters cast their ballots, according to prior election results available on the Auditor’s website.
In 1992, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton unseated incumbent President George H.W. Bush. Primary ballots in Thurston County featured, among other races, statewide executive positions alongside seats in the state legislature, U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, state Supreme Court, county commission, and Superior Court.
It was the year Patty Murray was first elected to the U.S. Senate, and there was a hotly contested race for an open governor’s seat, Thurston County Auditor Mary Hall pointed out in a phone call with The Olympian.
This year, Hall believes that an abundance of open seats and attention to elections in the news media and the country at large contributed to the high primary turnout.
Statewide, 54.1% of 4.6 million voters had cast ballots as of Friday with 6,126 ballots left to process. The last time more than half of voters statewide cast ballots in a primary was in 1964, according to an Associated Press report.
Secretary of State Kim Wyman had advised counties to plan for big turnouts, according to The AP, with so many people staying home during the pandemic and considering the high turnout in the March presidential primary.
In March, 49.3% of Thurston County voters cast ballots and statewide turnout was 49.6%.
Wyman told The AP counties should be prepared for a potential turnout of up to 90% turnout in November, and Hall said she expects record turnout in Thurston.
There’s no year to compare this to, she said, because vote by mail is established in Washington state, and while people will sometimes forget about Election Day, there’s a lot of attention in the media this year that makes it hard to avoid.
Plus, the state now offers same-day voter registration. However, Hall is still encouraging voters to register online to vote early to ensure they get their ballots, she said, because the U.S. Postal Service has notified the Auditor’s Office that mail will be slower this year.
This story was originally published August 15, 2020 at 5:45 AM.
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