OLYMPIA — Voters are weighing in on dozens of races across Washington on Tuesday as they winnow their choices for offices ranging from Congress to the Legislature in the state’s primary election.
They will choose from 11 candidates running for governor, though Democratic incumbent Gov. Jay Inslee and Republican challenger Bill Bryant are expected to easily advance to November.
The open seat for lieutenant governor also has drawn 11 candidates, including three Democratic state senators. Other open statewide races include: auditor, lands commissioner, treasurer and superintendent of public instruction.
The fact that of the nine statewide offices on the ballot, five have open seats — without an incumbent — injects a different dynamic into the election, said Cornell Clayton, a political science professor at Washington State University.
“You have so many more candidates from both parties than you would normally have,” he said. “When you have incumbents, it tends to dampen the competition.”
More than 4 million of the state’s registered voters started receiving their ballots in the mail weeks ago for the top two primary, in which the top two vote-getters advance to the November ballot, regardless of party. BecauseWashington is an all-mail-ballot state, results may take days to come in as the ballots — which must be postmarked or deposited in local drop boxes by Tuesday— arrive in elections offices throughout the week.
Eric Chase, who dropped off his ballot at the Thurston County Courthouse, said he was “rather disgusted” by the whole election cycle this year.
Chase, a social sciences professor at South Puget Sound Community College, had supported Bernie Sanders. He said the presidential primary politics — especially the fact that superdelegates backed Hillary Clinton even though Sanders won the state’s caucuses — impacted how he voted in state races.
“A lot of our superdelegates are running for re-election,” he said.
A U.S. Senate race is also on the primary ballot, with incumbent Democratic Sen. Patty Murray facing 16 challengers, including Republican candidate Chris Vance.
All 10 of state’s U.S. House seats are also on the ballot, including Seattle’s solidly Democratic 7th District, which is an open seat after Jim McDermott decided to retire after serving 14 two-year terms in Congress. That race has drawn nine candidates, including Democratic Sen. Pramila Jayapal, Democratic Rep. Brady Walkinshaw and Metropolitan King County Councilman Joe McDermott.
Incumbents are running in the rest of the races in the state’s congressional delegation, where Democrats hold six of the seats, and Republicans hold four.
Voters also will weigh in on legislative races, with all 98 state House seats and 26 of the Senate’s 49 seats on the ballot. Republicans currently control the Senate, and Democrats control the House, both by narrow margins.
In 78 of the 124 legislative races on the ballot, there’s no real contest in the primary. Twenty-seven races are unopposed, and in 51 seats, only two candidates are running, all of whom will automatically advance to November.
Because Chief Justice Barbara Madsen faces more than one challenger, hers is the only state Supreme Court race on the primary ballot. Justices Mary Yu and Charlie Wiggins each have just one challenger so they won’t appear on the ballot until the general election, along with the top two advancers from Madsen’s race.
As of midday Tuesday, about 18 percent of voters had returned their ballots. The secretary of state’s office has estimated a 41 percent turnout rate.
Chase said he’s not surprised by the low turnout so far.
“There’s a high level of nonparticipation because people have a bad taste in their mouths,” he said.
Sandra Kozlowski, a 54-year-old chemical dependency counselor who also dropped off her ballot at the Olympia courthouse, said she thinks voters are so polarized by the presidential race they are forgetting the importance of voting on state and local races.
“We all need to step up,” she said.
