Democrat Dave Upthegrove will advance to the general election in the Washington state lands commissioner race based on the results of a hand recount in which he clinched the second place spot in the primary by just 49 votes.
Upthegrove is set to face former congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Republican, in the Nov. 5 election. The two candidates offer different visions for how they’d approach the job – notably in how they want to balance logging and land conservation. Whoever is elected to the post will also play a pivotal role in the state’s work to manage and fight wildfires.
The tally after the Aug. 6 primary showed Upthegrove, who chairs the King County Council, ahead of the third-place finisher, Republican Sue Kuehl Pederson, by 51 votes out of about 1.9 million cast. The Washington secretary of state’s office certified the recount totals on Wednesday.
“This recount was a significant undertaking that required meticulous attention to detail to ensure every vote was counted fairly and accurately,” Assistant Secretary of State Kevin McMahan said in a statement. “It demonstrates the accuracy and reliability of Washington’s elections.”
“The vote counting equipment tabulated votes correctly, with the few variances arising from questions about voter intent,” he added.
But the Washington State Republican Party issued a statement on Wednesday voicing doubts about the results of the hand recount, saying it “leaves many questions unanswered” and that “WAGOP believes that some of these answers could affect the outcome of today’s certification.”
“The WAGOP is keeping all options open for responding to today’s certification from the WA Secretary of State. The Party may file lawsuits challenging the certification,” the statement said. “It may also file lawsuits challenging specific county recounts. Or the Party may focus on improving recount processes.”
By edging out Pederson, Upthegrove prevents a situation where two Republicans would face off for the statewide office after five Democrats split the party’s vote in the primary.
Both Upthegrove and Pederson in the days after Aug. 6 pressed to get voters to fix – or “cure” – ballots that hadn’t been counted due to problems like signatures that didn’t match those on file. Upthegrove credited this effort for tilting the race in his favor.
“I’m feeling very thankful for not just the volunteers who helped me get here with the ballot curing and the election observing, but also for our professional elections observers,” Upthegrove said on Wednesday. “They’re sort of the backbone of democracy.”
“I’m also very excited that voters will have a choice,” he added. “Instead of having two people with similar visions.”
Herrera Beutler said she isn’t surprised about competing against an opponent like Upthegrove.
“When I was looking at this last summer and people were asking me to consider running, I went through a lot of different scenarios,” she said. “The one that I thought was the most likely was going up against a kind of more established Democrat from the Seattle area.”
Herrera Beutler, who hails from southwest Washington, said she’s looking forward to making her pitch to the broader pool of voters in the general election and drawing a contrast between herself and Upthegrove.
Sam Cardwell, Pederson’s campaign manager, issued a statement reacting to the recount results on Wednesday afternoon, and conceding Pederson had lost. But he later “rescinded” the statement and didn’t follow up with further explanation.
The lands commissioner leads the Department of Natural Resources and oversees nearly 6 million acres of state public land, including about 3 million acres of “trust lands” that produce revenue – mostly from logging – for schools, counties and other parts of government.
Lands the agency manages are also open to recreation and some generate revenue from activities like farming, aquaculture, and commercial real estate. The department has about 2,200 employees. And it’s the state’s lead wildland firefighting agency.
A central plank in Upthegrove’s campaign is to preserve older, but not necessarily old-growth forests on state land. Activists have fought in court and bureaucratic arenas to stop logging on these lands, which they’ve dubbed “legacy forests.” This and other ideas he’s put forward have won him support among environmental and conservation groups.
Herrera Beutler is highly skeptical of setting aside more state forestland for conservation, arguing that doing so raises wildfire risks and threatens to undermine revenue from timber sales that would go to schools and counties. But she also emphasizes that she has no interest in cutting down old-growth trees or logging forests that are protected under existing laws.
While the debate about these older forests has drawn outsized attention in the race, both candidates acknowledge there is a range of other issues in play.
For example, Herrera Beutler said she thinks the Department of Natural Resources could devote more attention to tidelands and shellfish farmers’ concerns, including invasive species. And Upthegrove noted that he’d like to look at ways to expand opportunities on state land for recreationists, whether they be hikers, hunters, or horseback riders.
Both recognize the state’s challenges in combating wildfires. It’s an area the current commissioner, Hilary Franz, has focused on heavily during her two terms.
The primary math leans in Upthegrove’s favor. Herrera Beutler won the primary with about 22% of the vote. Assigning her all of the votes that went to Pederson would give her around 42%, with pretty much all the remaining 58% going to Upthegrove and other Democratic candidates.
“I know that that’s the big challenge is: can we make up that percentage?” Herrera Beutler said Wednesday. “I believe I can.”
“We’re going to see people who vote maybe once every four years coming out in November,” she added. “My hope is to get to the people who have not made up their mind.”
Upthegrove said he plans to campaign widely in the state and said he thinks he benefits most by stumping in areas where he’s less well known, outside of King County. He said he felt good about his prospects in the race but isn’t taking anything for granted.
“I always run like the underdog,” he said. “In politics, anything’s possible.”
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