What this month’s election results can tell us about November

Published 10:33 am Monday, August 19, 2024

With the results of Pacific County’s primary election now certified, the 11-week sprint to November is on.

And while candidates for local, state and federal office will continue making their case to voters through the remainder of summer and into the fall, recent history shows that Washington’s August primary is a uniquely strong bellwether for the ensuing general election. At the local level, Pacific County is no exception.

Washington’s top-two primary system is distinct from nearly all other states in that all candidates running for an office, regardless of party affiliation, run on the same ballot. Rather than one candidate from each of the two major parties automatically advancing to the general election in any given race, it is the two top overall vote-getters who move on.

In 2022, Sen. Patty Murray ran for reelection in a primary field that included five other Democratic candidates, five Republican candidates and seven independent or minor party candidates on the ballot.

Murray and the five other Democrats combined to receive 55.3% of the statewide vote in the primary election, with Republican candidate Tiffany Smiley advancing to join Murray on the general election ballot. That November, Murray would go on to win election to her sixth term in office, winning with 57.2% of the statewide vote — not quite 2% more than the total share of the vote that she and the other Democratic candidates had collectively earned in the primary election earlier in the summer.

But in Pacific County, the correlation between the primary and general elections was even greater that year. In the primary, Murray and the other Democrats combined to take 48.4% of the vote. Three months later, Murray received 48.3% of the vote in the general election, just one-tenth of a percent difference from the primary results.

Murray’s senate counterpart, Sen. Maria Cantwell, is running this year for a fifth term in office. In this month’s primary, she and the one other Democrat in the field combined to receive 58.1% of the statewide vote and 51.2% in Pacific County. She will face off against Raul Garcia, a physician from Yakima running as a Republican, in the fall.

Rematch for Congress

Not quite two years ago, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez defeated Joe Kent by less than one percent in the 2022 general election to win a term representing Southwest Washington in Congress. Pacific County was one of the two counties in Washington’s Third Congressional District that Perez, a Democrat, won that fall, along with Clark, while the others backed Kent, a Republican.

The two shared the same ballot again earlier this month, and they will once again face off in the general election after finishing as the two top overall vote-getters in a field of four candidates. District-wide, Perez received 45.9% of the vote while Kent received 39.3%.

Perez took a shade less than 50% in Pacific County in the primary, at 49.7%, which is 1.2% less than the 50.9% she received countywide in the general election two years ago. Kent checked in at 39.9% in the county in this year’s primary, 8.9% less than he won in November 2022.

Much of the remaining vote in the primary went to Leslie Lewallen, a Republican from Camas running as more of a mainstream Republican alternative to Kent who argued he blew a winnable race two years ago against Perez and would fare no better this time around. Lewallen ultimately received just 12.2% of the vote in this month’s primary and endorsed Kent in a press release conceding defeat.

Relative to how she performed in the general election two years ago, the congresswoman held up best in the primary in the likes of Long Beach, Seaview, Chinook, Naselle and unincorporated communities in north county.

In Long Beach, Perez received 60.7% of this year’s primary vote in a four-candidate field; in the 2022 general election, with Kent the only other candidate on the ballot, she received 60.4% of the vote. In Seaview, she clocked in at 61.9% in the primary, nearly matching the 62.7% she received two years ago.

Elsewhere in south county, Perez improved or virtually matched her standing in both Chinook and Naselle over her 2022 general election performance. In Naselle, she increased her share of the vote from 36.9% in 2022 to 38.6% in the primary. And in Chinook, the 51.1% she received this month was just shy of the 51.6% she took in 2022.

Perez also held steady or made gains in several unincorporated north county communities. In the North Cove precinct, which includes Tokeland and the Shoalwater Bay Indian Reservation, the congresswoman received 46.8% two years ago and 46.9% this month. In Frances and Lebam, Perez took 31% in the primary after winning 30.4% in 2022. And in the precinct that includes Menlo and Firdale, she received 34.8% after taking 34.5% two years ago.

Kent, on the other hand, performed best relative to his 2022 performance in some north peninsula precincts.

In the Nahcotta precinct, Kent received 47% of the vote in the general election two years ago and took 42.7% in the primary — with Lewallen taking another 8%. In Ocean Park, the 36.2% he received this month is less than 6% off from the 41.7% he won in 2022, with Lewallen taking another 6.8%.

What’s clear, both in Pacific County and district-wide, is that who Lewallen’s supporters turn to now that she’s out of the race will play a key role in determining which of the two candidates can win the support from a majority of voters come November.