DISTRICT 6 -- Incumbent Republicans Mike Volz and Jenny Graham were on their way to victory in the 6th Legislative District after Tuesday’s initial election results. The district was the most heavily contested of any legislative district in Spokane County.
Volz led challenger Zack Zappone for Position 1 by a vote of 51% to 48.89%, totaling 38,742 to 37,146. Graham’s lead was slightly more comfortable, as she led challenger Tom McGarry for Position 2 by a vote of 52.83% to 47.04%, totaling 39,847 to 35,482.
The twice-incumbent Volz didn’t immediately return multiple calls for comment Tuesday night.
Volz’s lead of roughly 1,600 votes wasn’t enough for the Democratic challenger in the Position 1 race. Zappone said his rigorous campaigning has put him in position to flip the position blue for the first time since 2008.
“We got into this race on the last day of filing week, virtually unknown to most people, and now we have put ourselves in position to flip this seat for the first time in 12 years,” Zappone said.
He added that his team will work to ensure every vote is properly accounted for.
“I am confident that the Spokane County Elections Office will count the remaining ballots in a timely, but more importantly, accurate manner,” Zappone said.
Volz held a larger lead after August’s primaries, with a certified victory of 54.90% (27,620) to Zappone’s 44.91% (22,598).
Graham said her early indication of probable victory felt “good, especially when I’m not feeling so good right now.” Graham is currently recovering from COVID-19.
“I am very happy and excited to have hopefully earned the people’s trust again,” Graham said. “I know there’s a lot of hard work ahead of us, and I’m looking forward to including them in decisions that are being made and looking forward to better days coming. It has to be better than 2020.”
She added that after a hopeful recovery from COVID-19, her next steps will be to prepare for legislative session, either live in Olympia or remotely.
“(Next steps are) going to be get through this and figure out what they’re doing for the session and pick up and take what is going on, hopefully sooner than later,” Graham said.
McGarry wasn’t ready to concede victory Tuesday night.
“We have a lot of different votes that have yet to be counted, and we’re not giving up yet,” he said.
When asked for next steps if Graham holds on and is declared the victor, McGarry said “we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
Initial results showed McGarry slightly narrowing Graham’s margin of victory over Democratic challengers from August’s primary. Then, Graham drew 54.80% of the vote (27,341), while McGarry pulled in 29.31% (14,624). Third candidate Christian McLachlan garnered 15.64% of the vote (7,806) and failed to advance.
83 write-in votes were reported Tuesday in the race for Position 1, while 93 were reported for Position 2.
The county elections website reported a 73.50% voter turnout through 8 p.m. Tuesday in District 6 and 71.19% turnout county-wide. Earlier in the day, elections auditor Vicki Dalton said the county was expecting upwards of a 90% voter turnout. Many mail-in ballots have yet to be counted, but will be over the next few days.
The election will be certified Nov. 24.
Drew Lawson can be reached at [email protected].
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