It now looks like Washington voters this November will just barely avoid having to choose between two Republicans for Commissioner of Public Lands.
That still could happen, but as of August 15, with about 15,450 votes still to be counted from the state’s August 6 primary, Democrat Dave Upthegrove retained a tenuous hold on second place. He was behind Republican former congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler by 1.09 percent and ahead of Republican Sue Kuehl Pederson by even less: 0.12 percent, or 2,244 votes.
Ominously for Dems, most of the ballots still to be counted will come from counties where the vote so far has favored Beutler and Pederson, who ran for Commissioner of Public Lands four years ago, over Upthegrove, a King County Council member.
Upthegrove leads Pederson in only six of Washington’s 39 counties: Island, Jefferson, King, San Juan, Thurston and Whatcom. As of August 15, those counties estimate they have a total of about 3,550 ballots still in process, while counties that have favored Pederson have about 14,550. Walla Walla is the standout slowpoke county, with 5,500 uncounted ballots.
One might expect the Democrat’s bid to be saved by votes still to come from populous King County, where he has a big lead. But King says it has only 300 ballots left to count.
Nevertheless, my county-by-county analysis of the vote and of the number of ballots remaining suggests that Upthegrove’s lead over Pederson will shrink to even more microscopic proportions but will not completely disappear. If the late tallies follow the pattern of those thus far, the Democrat will retain second place by less than 500 votes out of a total of almost 800,000 cast.
The Upthegrove campaign says it expects his margin of victory to be 100-200 votes. The campaign has deployed dozens of volunteers to contact hundreds of Democrats whose ballots are in limbo because they lack proper signatures.
(Full disclosure: My wife and I donated to the Upthegrove campaign and hosted a fundraiser for him in our home.)
Although most of the vote still to come is from GOP precincts, the problem for Pederson is that Beutler will continue to take most of it. Pederson will get more of what’s left over than Upthegrove does, but probably not enough to completely overcome the Democrat’s lead.
Wait for the recount, however. In statewide elections, candidates can demand a recount when the gap between a winner and loser is less than 1,000 votes and less than 0.25 percent of the total cast for both. The Upthegrove-Pederson contest will easily qualify.
But how did it almost come about that no Democrat qualified for the November ballot in the race for Commissioner of Public Lands?
Upthegrove’s near-elimination is an artifact of Initiative 872, approved by Washington voters in 2004 and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court despite challenges by the Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian parties. With I-872, Washington became the first state in the nation where the top two vote getters in a primary election qualify for the general-election ballot regardless of their party.
That means Upthegrove, despite winning more votes than any of the other four Democrats who ran, would be up the creek if he came in third behind two Republicans. And he risked doing so precisely because there were four other Dems in the race, who sapped support that otherwise probably would have gone to him.
Together, the five Dems took more than 57 percent of the vote. Yet, Beutler led the field, thanks to having only one GOP rival, Pederson, on the ballot. Voters in November nearly faced a choice between the two of them.
Which would have meant that a Republican would be paid $166,762 a year to head the Department of Natural Resources, overseeing management of more than 5 million acres of state forest, agricultural, range, aquatic, and commercial lands.
She—Beutler, presumably—would become the first Republican to hold the office since Doug Sutherland left it in 2009.
Voters troubled by the environmental implications of this might want to have a word with the editorial board of The Seattle Times, which endorsed one of Upthegrove’s Democratic rivals, Patrick DePoe, a commercial fisherman and firefighter who’s a member of the Makah tribe. “His election would be historic,” The Times trumpeted, as DePoe would be “the first Native American statewide officeholder.”
DePoe finished a distant fourth. Even so, the vote for him nearly guaranteed Republican control of the Department of Natural Resources.
Great article. I appreciate the topic and your POV.Thank you.
I pose the question: Does any voter know anything about resource management? Or do we vote based on D or R?
How many of these good folk aspiring to this position have credentials related to the position.? Not political but technical?
Our region is on fire because of misplaced policies established a century ago. Back then, we thought the land mgmt policies were correct. Time told us otherwise.
Me thinks we don’t understand the issues, and have difficulty seeing into the future.
Personally, I’ll vote for anyone with a degree in forestry, or land management, and an understanding of history and current environmental affairs. No show boats, please.
Tell me. Who has those qualifications?
I’m fairly sure that among the people who promoted misguided policies, many had degrees in forestry. Jerry Franklin told the Seattle Times that as a teenager, distressed over development incursions into his neighborhood forest, he vowed to dedicate his life to defending forests. We could use more Jerry Franklins. But I don’t think that really has been the typical reason for getting a forestry degree, at all.
It’s a political office. I suspect that the Seattle TImes editorial board, as excited as they may be about such a big step forward for Native Americans, was more basically confident that DePoe would be more reliable on the short term economic benefits of state forest lands. That’s where the battleground is – where do we make the sacrifices? Forest industry dependent communities? Increasingly fragile ecosystems? Whoever wins, can hire someone like Jerry Franklin and listen to him – if they want to.
I’m happy to see a Republican in office.
I don’t think it’s healthy for us to have a one party political government.
I’m a Democrat but skeptical of the Party as constituted so I voted for Beutler.
Great questions. Where is Bruce Brown when we need him?
Party affiliation is a poor basis for making this decision.
First, Beutler is hardly your MAGA Republican. She cast the courageous vote to impeach Trump, held her ground and lost her last race in the primary.
Second, a more important consideration is the candidates’ ideas of forestry. Beutler is the more likely to continue DNR’s recent conversion to ecological forestry. Forests need to be thinned, old plantation stands need to be replaced with a variety of species. Upthegrove seems more likely to leave the forests alone.
Third, the Democratic party could use a little competition. The Party’s vigorous attempt to thwart Mark Mullet’s campaign denied the public a chance to consider a thoughtful, centrist candidate.
Fourth, it will be a sad day when Washington becomes a one party state. When a responsible Republican is willing to defy extremists and take reasonable positions, she deserves our consideration.
T
“The Party’s vigorous attempt to thwart Mark Mullet’s campaign?” Baloney! Nobody made a more vigorous campaign to thwart Mark Mullet’s campaign than Mark Mullet. He never met a progressive tax he liked, or a charter school he didn’t like. “Thoughtful centrist,” my ass. The guy was out of step with this state’s Democratic voters from Day One, and he based his campaign on being so. In the end, he couldn’t outpoll Semi Bird. The only thing in the “middle of the road” in Washington anymore is a dead raccoon.
Mark Mullet is a Republican masquerading as a Democrat, openly contemptuous of impoverished people who have struggled terribly just to stay afloat… even during the worst days of the Pandemic. He succeeded in stopping progressive legislation that barred insurance companies from overcharging people with poor credit scores …. REGARDLESS OF THEIR DRIVING RECORD. A poor credit score (which is open to interpretation) can arise from many causes: unemployment or underemployment, high medical bills, but it has nothing to do with one’s driving. A cruel and cynical thing to do, pandering to elites. I have disagreed with Ivan before, but I agree completely here.
There were actually 1,894,883 votes cast in this race, not just 800,000. Being off by a million votes calls this article’s facts into question.
This piece seems to *want* to make a case against the Top 2 Primary, which was approved by 1,632,225 voters, or 59.85%. The problem here isn’t the Top 2, it was having 5 Democrats in the race.
Barry doesn’t apparently see the value of having a Native American in the office of Lands Commissioner. By only listing “a commercial fisherman and firefighter who’s a member of the Makah tribe”, Barry minimized Patrick DePoe’s extensive and highly relevant background.
DePoe is actually Director of Tribal Relations, Department of Natural Resources. That’s right, he is CURRENTLY one of the Directors of the same agency he wanted to lead. He’s ALSO a land manager, and former emergency first responder, and, in his Makah Tribe, he is the emergency operations command. In addition, DePoe served is a Current Member of the Salmon Defense Board; Founding Co-Chair and Governor Inslee appointee to Washington’s Environmental Justice Council. He is a past Member, Low Carbon Energy Siting Study Advisory Board; past Co-Chair, Land, Water and Natural Resources Subcommittee of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Tribal-Interior Budget Council; past Treasurer, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission; and past Chair, Land & Natural Resources Committee of the National Congress of American Indians. Each of these roles made him eminently qualified to run for Lands Commissioner. THAT is why the Seattle Times endorsed him.
Perhaps Barry just doesn’t understand that Native Americans have served as the commissioners of their lands for millennia. By denigrating DePoe’s expertise, Barry’s observations are racist AF.
Why not question why the other three Democrats were in this race? Why not challenge Allen Leibowitz, who got 10.2%? And what about Sen. Kevin Van De Wege? He pulled half the votes of DePoe. Or Jeralee Anderson, with her 4.43%? No, Barry only focused on the Native American, well-qualified candidate. WTF.
When the Democratic State Party had stronger Party Chairs, those Chairs would sit down together the multiple candidates considering a run and work hard to “re-orient” some of those candidates. It didn’t always work, but it did more than not.
In 2016, three Democrats were in the 5-person Primary contest for State Treasurer: Sen. Marko Liias, John Comerford, and former Port Commissioner Alec Fisken. Each refused to drop out, and the Republicans Duane Davidson and Michael Waite advanced to the General. Davidson won the General and served just one term, defeated in 2020 by Democratic Rep. Mike Pellicciotti. There was no great, lasting call to upend the Top 2 Primary, which is strongly supported by Washington’s citizens.
Good Party leaders do more than just raise money and turn out voters. Great Party leaders groom, recruit, and work with potential candidates. The Best Party leaders find some other role or office to seek for some of the potential candidates so as not to have 5 candidates of the same Party in one race. This is a Party problem, not an election structure problem. We have a very deep bench of qualified Democrats here in Washington for many, many positions. What is still lacking, however, is strong leadership at Legislative, County and State Party levels.
BTW, I am a strong supporter and donor to Dave Upthegrove. I hope that, should he make it to the General Election, which he is sure to win if he gets there, will elevate Patrick DePoe to his right-hand man. Because few know better how to manage land, rivers, and coastal waters than the indigenous people.
Party structures are legally weak in Washington State. We cannot tell wannabe candidates like Leibowitz or Anderson that they cannot put the “D” after their name on the ballot. Apparently 60% of Washington voters wanted to gut the parties’ power to designate who gets to use their name on the ballot. I suggest that this problem needs to be fixed, and we should push the largely “Democratic” Legislature to do so.
Fixed how? Make Public Lands Commissioner a non-partisan office, and hold one ranked choice election to decide? The legislature would sure hate on that idea.
Most every time there is an attempt to thwart voters’ opinions regarding our state Primary elections, the voters have thumped those making such attempts. For decades, the Political Parties promoted the outrageously undemocratic Caucus system on us. But after Pat Robertson won the 1988 Republican Caucuses, there was an Initiative the Legislature filed, with signatures rapidly collected in the short period between the November election and mid-December. The Legislature wisely adopted the Initiative, but the Political Parties kept fighting against it, refusing to accept Presidential Primary results. Meanwhile, multiples more voters participated in the Presidential Primaries than the Caucuses (the high water mark for Democrats was a bit over 250,000 participants in the 2008 Caucuses). The Republicans were the first to at least partially accept what voters wanted, allocating some delegates through the Primary and some through the Caucus. It took a lot longer time for the Democrats to pull their heads out and give Democratic voters what they wanted. Hats off to former Democratic Party Chair Tina Podlodowski for finally pushing it through the State Party and the Democratic National Committee.
Just because you don’t like a particular outcome is no reason to keep limiting what voters can do.
Washington State Grange introduced initiatives for various iterations of the Top 2 Primary, each one getting approved overwhelmingly by voters, despite strong opposition by Political Parties. Clearly
The parties represent their own interests, not the voters’, and the result is a bizarre divide, vigorously defended by the parties, that aligns every issue where there’s potential disagreement. Are there really two kinds of people? No.
As the parties are gradually pried loose from their grip on politics, the voters who are used to using D/R as a litmus test for whatever they care about might worry that they’ll be lost without it, but they’ll be fine. Mullet for example – plenty of voters could see through that “D”.
The problem we had with the Lands Commissioner race, is that there were too many options that too many people liked. Long Shot Lebovitz pulled a surprising number, DePoe had a lot of backing, etc. That’s good, right? People are voting for what they want.
What disenfranchises us, is the overly simplistic arithmetic that makes you have to vote for apparent front runner when you really liked someone else better, to avoid the present situation. Even when it doesn’t come out grossly wrong, as it’s apparenly likely to in this case, it heavily favors big money and political apparatus that can create that front runner momentum.