SEATTLE — King County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove has defeated former U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler in the race to become Washington’s next commissioner of public lands.
As of 5:30 p.m. Thursday, about 53.1% of ballots were cast for Democrat Upthegrove, compared to Republican Herrera Beutler’s 46.9%.
More than a third of the votes for Upthegrove came from King County, where over 67% of voters cast a ballot for him. More than 50% of voters in Jefferson, Thurston, Kitsap, Whatcom, Snohomish, Island and San Juan counties also voted for Upthegrove.
Upthegrove ran in part on protecting more older state forests. In a phone call Thursday night, he celebrated the state’s “strong conservation values.”
“It’s part of what makes our state special,” Upthegrove said. “I ran on an agenda protecting clean air, clean water and habitat and expanding recreational opportunities, improving wildfire and those are commonsense issues that resonate with people.”
Upthegrove said he would be the first out LGBTQ+ statewide executive office holder in Washington and was reflecting on “the LGBT leaders that came before me and paved away for people of all backgrounds to be elected to office,” calling his election a “meaningful milestone.”
Herrera Beutler conceded the race. “Tonight, I called Dave Upthegrove to congratulate him on a well-run, issues-focused campaign and to wish him success,” she said in a statement.
The commissioner of public lands helms the state Department of Natural Resources and oversees efforts to steward and make money from 2.6 million acres of the state’s waters, about 1 million acres of rangelands and 2 million acres of forests — with about half set aside for habitat and the rest available for logging.
The commissioner also leads the state’s largest firefighting force, with responsibilities covering 13 million acres of private and public lands.
Upthegrove will succeed Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz, who has held the post since 2017.
Upthegrove offered a vision for leveraging the agency’s trust lands to assist in delivering on the state’s promise of an electricity supply free of greenhouse gas emissions by 2045. He promised to bolster existing efforts to reduce wildfire risks and restore forest health. He has said he wants everyone to have access to recreational opportunities on state lands.
Among the varied proposals for the vast role, front and center was Upthegrove’s plan to pause commercial sales of an estimated nearly 80,000 acres of older, structurally complex forests. These are not protected old-growth forests but rather what have been dubbed “legacy forests” or the old growth of tomorrow.
Environmental advocates have been calling for the protection of these second-growth forests since 2021. These forests’ big trees store more carbon than younger trees on short harvest rotations. They also offer critical habitat and help maintain stream flows.
Herrera Beutler centered her campaign around a pledge to reduce the risk of devastating wildfires through more active forest management while criticizing Upthegrove’s plan as one that would hurt forest health, rural communities and revenue from timber sales for schools and other essential services. She had said forests that had been set aside and untouched became tinderboxes.
She instead said she wouldn’t change much, not directing the agency to put up any more or any less timber for sale.
The Washington Secretary of State’s Office estimates more than 560,000 ballots remain to be counted as of 5:30 p.m. Thursday. More than 190,000 votes separated Upthegrove and Herrera Beutler.
