Republicans narrow gap slightly in bid to unseat Inslee

REPUBLIC — It’s too little, too late.

Regardless, a Monday, Aug. 10, update from the Secretary of State’s Office shows Republican gubernatorial frontrunner Loren Culp picking up another Western Washington county — Grays Harbor — in last week’s primary election.

Meanwhile, he ceded a smaller county to another conservative candidate, Raul Garcia, who now claims two counties.

Those candidates, and more than 30 others, trail incumbent Democrat Gov. Jay Inslee in the Aug. 4 contest. Only the Top 2 advance to the November general election.

While the shift in counties continues to narrow the gap in their effort to unseat Inslee , it won’t make any difference in the outcome of the primary.

Ballots are still being counted from the all-mail election because of additional time needed to verify ballot signatures, as well as delays caused by putting a ballot in the mail at the last-minute.

In Monday’s statewide count, Grays Harbor County jumped from the Inslee to Culp, with the Republican police chief from Republic winning the county by less than 200 votes.

Culp has 7,761 votes (40.01%) in that county; Inslee, of Bainbridge Island, has 7,586 votes (39.1%).

In Adams County, the win moved from Culp to Garcia, with Inslee a distant third.

There, Garcia — a doctor from Yakima — has 1,022 votes (31.39%) and Culp has 993 votes (30.5%).

Monday’s statewide count shows Republicans continuing to slightly narrow the gap between conservative challengers and the liberal incumbent.

Inslee, however, has an insurmountable lead statewide with more than 50% of votes in his favor.

An updated 6:07 p.m. tally Monday shows Inslee with 1,156,594 votes (50.39%) statewide.

The top Republican, Culp, is in second place with 394,342 votes (17.18%). He is followed by fellow conservatives Joshua Freed with 203,467 (8.86%), Tim Eyman with 149,595 (6.52%) and Garcia with 123, 049 (5.36%).

None of the remaining candidates broke the 5% mark.

Broken down by county, Inslee has won 26 of the state’s 39 counties and Culp has 11. Garcia won the remaining two.

Inslee’s strongest support is coming from San Juan County, where he is taking home 72.78% of the vote.

East of the Cascades, Inslee found is best support in Whitman County, where he is leading with 42.47%, which is just ahead of Spokane County at 40.19%.

But his biggest prize is King County, where he received 68.85% of the vote — a whopping 462,929 votes.

Inslee’s haul in King County alone far exceeds Culp’s statewide total.

Culp’s strongest support statewide came from his home county.

In Ferry County, Culp received 56.74% support, so far, the Monday tally showed. West of the Cascades, he found his strongest support in Lewis County, where he has 54.07% support.

Culp’s worst showing statewide was in King County, where he received only 5.17% support, according to the preliminary results.

Inslee’s weakest showing statewide was in Adams County, where he had only 16.95% support.

Due to the number of conservative candidates in the field of gubernatorial hopefuls, the county breakdown doesn’t show how close the battle for governor may be.

As of Monday evening, Democrats had picked up 52.5% of the preliminary tally, while Republicans grabbed about 44.6%.

The remaining 2.9% of the vote went to independents, and candidates of other non-traditional parties, such as the Green or Propertarianist parties.

In comparing the Democrat v. Republican county take, conservative candidates dominated the county count, with 31.

Democrats held more than 50% of the vote in eight counties — all in Western Washington.

Looking at the preliminary tally, Island, Jefferson, King, Kitsap, San Juan, Snohomish, Thurston and Whatcom counties are leaning to the left.

The remaining 31 counties are leaning to the right.

Five of those counties — Pacific, Pierce, Skagit, Spokane and Whitman —were closer contests that titled only slightly Republican.

Official results of the primary won’t be announced until after the Aug. 21 certification by the Secretary of State’s Office.

Inslee and Culp are far enough ahead in the ballot count that they will be moving on for the head-to-head Nov. 3 general election.

Roger Harnack can be reached at [email protected].