Murray, Smiley headed to November ballot after first primary results are tallied

As results of the U.S. Senate race in Washington came in Tuesday night, two candidates had carved out solid footholds statewide: Republican newcomer Tiffany Smiley and Democratic incumbent Sen. Patty Murray.

Murray, who was first elected to the office in 1992, had 54% of the vote by the end of the evening count. Smiley ended up with nearly 32%.

Smiley’s campaign said in a news release Tuesday evening that while they are excited about the evening’s results, the campaign will stay “laser focused on the next three months of the general election.”

“Tiffany has a track record of building coalitions and achieving results and that is what we will continue to do,” they said. “As we look to November, we are confident that this is a message that will continue to resonate with voters, and that when the final tally comes in Washingtonians will elect a new mom to represent them in Washington D.C.”

Murray said in her news release Tuesday night that she was grateful to those who supported her campaign, and added that “this is not a normal midterm election.”

“Our daughters and granddaughters have lost the right to make their own health care decisions, and today’s extreme Republican Party continues to push lies that the 2020 election was stolen, threatening our democracy,” Murray said.

While most of the 18 candidates who were on the primary ballot for Murray’s seat received some votes, none of them were able to reach a threshold above 5% as of Tuesday evening.

Trump Republican Leon Lawson and Republican John Guenther both brought in about 3% of the votes each. The other 14 candidates had less than 1% of votes.

Washington voters had until 8 p.m. Tuesday to submit their ballot. Results will continue to come in over the next few days, and the election will be certified 14 days from the primary election day.

There are 4,803,556 registered voters in Washington state, according to the Secretary of State website.

Only the top two vote-getters will advance to the general election on Nov. 8.

As of 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, more than 1 million ballots had been counted and more than 300,000 ballots still needed to be counted. More are expected in the upcoming days.

This story was originally published August 2, 2022 at 9:35 PM.

Shauna Sowersby

The Olympian

Shauna Sowersby was a freelancer for several local and national publications before joining McClatchy’s northwest newspapers covering the Legislature. Support my work with a digital subscription