A hand recount in the Commissioner of Public Lands race shows that Democrat Dave Upthegrove has the votes to face off against former U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, the Republican who came in first place in the August primary. The mandatory recount found nearly identical results between the second- and third-place candidates.

Upthegrove defeated Republican Sue Kuehl Pederson for second place, with 396,304 votes to 396,255 – a difference of 49 votes. The total was finalized and updated after King County certified its votes on Wednesday. Upthegrove gained six votes in the recount and Kuehl Pederson gained four. The unofficial count was posted to the Secretary of State’s website on Tuesday, and was certified Wednesday at noon.

The recount was triggered when the initial count found that 51 votes out of 1.9 million cast separated them for second and third place after the primary was certified last month. Both campaigns “cured” thousands of ballots in the weeks between the primary day and the certification deadline by contacting voters whose ballots were rejected because of fixable errors.

In a primary, the state requires an automatic hand recount when the difference between the second- and third-place candidates is less than one quarter of one percent and also less than 1,000 votes.

In a top-two primary, the two candidates with the most votes face each other in the general election, regardless of party. This year in the Commissioner of Public Lands primary, about 42% of voters chose one of the two Republicans, and about 57% of voters chose one of the five Democrats. No single candidate got more than 22% of the vote.

The Commissioner of Public Lands position oversees the state’s Department of Natural Resources, which includes managing nearly six million acres of state-owned public lands and the state’s response to wildfires.

The general election is Nov. 5.

Update 3 p.m. September 4, 2024: This article has been updated with the certified and finalized recount numbers.

Gubernatorial candidates Democrat Bob Ferguson and Republican Dave Reichert are set to debate twice in September, after an announcement Thursday that an October debate would not take place. 

“I’m looking forward to both of our September debates with Dave Reichert,” Ferguson said in a Twitter post Friday. “Encouraging everyone to watch on September 10th and September 18th!”

A televised debate hosted by The Seattle Times and KING 5 News will occur at 8 p.m. on Sept. 10 in Seattle. 

The Sept. 18 debate will be in Spokane. The Association of Washington Business and Greater Spokane Inc. will host and NonStop Local KHQ-TV will broadcast the event at 6 p.m.

Initial reports that Ferguson “withdrew” from the Oct. 11 event, planned by the Seattle City Club, were “too strong of a description to summarize what happened,” the organization’s executive director, Alicia Crank, clarified in a post on social media site X Friday. 

Seattle City Club scheduled the October debate to take place at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, and would have included the participation of Cascade PBS and three other news outlets.

Crank explained that while both campaigns agreed to “save the date” for the event and had proactive follow-up from each candidate after the primary, the organization was told a “formal confirmation would come if the other side did so first.” 

She noted that Reichert’s campaign initially declined, but that Ferguson’s campaign said they would participate if Reichert’s campaign changed their mind. 

“In good faith, we kept the lines of communication going, and the Reichert campaign decided to commit,” Crank said. “After notifying the Ferguson campaign of this update, they chose without explanation to decline anyway.”

Ferguson’s campaign told Cascade PBS in a phone call that the claims of Ferguson pulling out or withdrawing from the debate were “inaccurate,” as a formal agreement had never been made.

Reichert told news site The Center Square in an email that he was disappointed about the outcome. 

“I urge him to change course and join me on stage on October 11,” Reichert wrote. 

Ferguson, the current state attorney general, and Reichert, a former Congressman and King County Sheriff, will face off in November’s general election.

Elections officials throughout the state will conduct a hand recount to determine who will appear on the general election ballot in the Commissioner for Public Lands race.

Just 51 votes separate Democrat Dave Upthegrove and Republican Sue Kuehl Pederson in the contest to face former U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Republican, who came in first place in the August primary. 

After the first count, Upthegrove has 396,300 votes to Kuehl Pederson’s 396,249. That’s a difference of 0.0064%. In a primary, an automatic hand recount is triggered when the difference between the second- and third-place candidates is less than one quarter of one percent and also less than 1,000 votes.

The Office of the Secretary of State said that county election offices estimate the manual recount will take seven business days to complete. The Office certified the results of the Aug. 6 primary on Thursday.

Before this, the closest statewide race in a Washington primary was the 1960 superintendent of public instruction primary, in which A. T. Van Devanter and Harold L. Anderson were separated by 252 votes, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. (Van Devanter made it to the general election, but lost to Louis Bruno.)

The Secretary of State’s Office reported that 1.9 million voters, a turnout of 40.9%, took part in the Aug. 6 state primary. That was a higher turnout than in 2022 (40.4%), but a lower turnout than 2020 (54.4%). 

Krist Novoselić, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West have qualified to be among the eight minor-party presidential candidates and one independent ticket to appear this November on Washington’s general-election ballot. Barring challenges, they are slated to appear alongside the Republican and Democratic nominees for president.

The minor-party and independent tickets qualified for the general-election ballot with 1,000 signatures gathered during a state convention this year. Parties and candidates were notified Tuesday of their qualification for the Washington ballot.

The Republican Party, which held its convention in July, has nominated former President Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance as its presidential ticket. The Democratic Party certified its presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz earlier this month.

At stake are Washington’s 12 votes in the electoral college. Novoselić has said he is running only so that a new centrist party, the Cascade Party of Washington, will be recognized as a bona fide minor political party in this state.

The minor parties, presidential candidates and running mates are:

• We the People Party: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Nicole Shanahan
• Green Party: Jill Stein, Samson LeBeau Kpadenou
• Socialism and Liberation Party: Claudia De la Cruz, Karina Garcia
• Socialist Workers Party: Rachele Fruit, Dennis Richter
• Socialist Equality Party: Joseph Kishore, Jerry White
• Libertarian Party: Chase Oliver, Mike ter Maat
• Cascade Party: Krist Novoselić, James Carroll
• Justice for All Party: Cornel West, Melina Abdullah
• Independent candidate: Shiva Ayyadurai, Crystal Ellis

Challenges to their nominations must be filed in Thurston County Superior Court by five days after the candidates were notified. The Washington Democratic Party is challenging Kennedy’s nomination, saying the signatures were not gathered at a party convention, according to the Washington State Standard.

General-election ballots will be mailed on Oct. 18 and must be returned by Nov. 5. On that ballot, alongside president, Washington voters will also choose the winners of ten statewide races, including governor, attorney general, U.S. senator, all its congressional representatives and a large portion of the state legislature, as well as weigh in on statewide ballot measures.

Correction Aug. 19, 2024: An earlier version of this story listed the incorrect number of statewide races.

Candidate filing week for races in the general election begins Monday, May 6. People interested in running for federal, statewide, Legislative and Superior Court and Court of Appeals positions can file for election with the Secretary of State’s office through Friday, May 10. People interested in running for local races can file with their local county elections offices.

These races are slated to be on the Aug. 6 primary ballot. The top two vote-getters in each race will proceed to the general election on Nov. 5. The exception to that rule is if only one or two candidates file to run for a nonpartisan race, such as judge. In that case the race would skip the primary and appear on the general election ballot.

Statewide seats this year are governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, superintendent of public instruction, treasurer, public lands commissioner and insurance commissioner. In the Legislature, all seats in the state House are up for election, as well as 25 seats in the state Senate. Federal races on the ballot this year are all 10 congressional seats and U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell’s seat. 

People interested in running for these positions can file with the Secretary of State’s Office online or in person in Olympia. The filing fees for each seat are 1% of the office’s annual salary. Filing period closes Friday 5 p.m. sharp, according to the state.

Races for local seats – for example, District Court positions and the special election for Seattle City Council Position 8, currently held by Councilmember Tanya Woo, who was appointed to a vacated seat this year – will be handled at local elections offices (in these examples, King County).

The deadline to withdraw oneself from candidacy is 5 p.m. Monday, May 13.

Correction, May 8, 2024: An earlier version of this story misstated which races can skip the August primary. This has been corrected.

Rep. Frank Chopp, speaker of the Washington House for 20 years, has announced he will not be seeking reelection after 30 years representing Seattle in the state Legislature.

The Democratic leader has focused his tenure in state government on housing, behavioral health care and education. His signature policy achievements included: providing free college and university tuition for low-income students; health care and housing for low-income families and unhoused people; the state Housing Trust Fund; increased funding for early learning; the legalization of same-sex marriage; Washington’s Voting Rights Act; and more state money for homes for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

“I’ve always been driven by the belief that everyone deserves a foundation of home, health, and hope,” Chopp said in a statement. “As I leave legislative office, I am excited for the next generation of leaders carrying on this work, as I continue to advocate and organize efforts in the public interest as a public citizen. As people know about me, I am not the retiring type.”

In his “spare time,” Chopp has continued his work as a community organizer and advocate for low-income housing.

Chopp, 70, was first elected to the House in 1994, representing Seattle’s Capitol Hill, the U District, Wallingford and Fremont neighborhoods. He was House minority leader from 1997 to 1998 and was elected co-speaker with Clyde Ballard during the 1999-2001 legislative sessions when Democrats and Republicans split the House 49-49. He was elected sole speaker in 2002 when the Democrats won a majority of the House, which they have not lost since.

His counterpart in the Republican party, Minority Leader J.T. Wilcox of Yelm, also recently announced he would not be running for reelection after 14 years in the House.

U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Spokane, announced on Thursday that she will not seek reelection in Washington’s 5th District after 20 years in the seat.

McMorris Rodgers said in a statement that the time has come for her to find new ways to serve the people of Eastern Washington.

“After much prayer and reflection I’ve decided the time has come to serve them in new ways. I will not be running for re-election to the People's House,” she said in a statement released on Thursday.

McMorris Rodgers is one of two Republicans among Washington’s 10 delegates in the House of Representatives. She represents Washington’s 5th Congressional District, which covers 16,053 square miles in the easternmost part of the state, spanning from Canada to Idaho and Oregon.

She was the sole no-vote in Washington’s Congressional delegation to impeach former President Donald Trump after the Jan. 6 insurrection. The state’s other two Republican representatives at the time voted to impeach.

McMorris Rodgers was elected to her position in Congress in 2004, most recently serving as Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. She formerly was chair of the House Republican Conference from 2012 to 2018.

So far, three Democrats have started to raise money to run for the 5th District seat, according to the Federal Election Commission: Ann Marie Danimus, who has run for the seat before; Carmela Conroy, a former U.S. diplomat; and Bernadine Bank, a physician.

Late last year, U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Gig Harbor, announced that he would not run for reelection. His seat has attracted several candidates.

King County is in the middle of an election, but registered voters will not be receiving a ballot in the mail. 

To vote for the King Conservation District Board of Supervisors Election, people need to go online to KingCD.org/VOTE, or use their mobile phone to scan the card they received in the mail. 

The King Conservation District has a five-member board that sets water, land and wildlife conservation policy. Voting for board seat No. 1 is open through Feb. 13. All registered voters in King County, except those who live in Enumclaw, Federal Way, Milton, Pacific and Skykomish, are eligible to vote in this election.

Three people are seeking your vote: Brittney Bush Bollay, the board’s current vice chair; Aaron Ellig, a biologist who works for Sound Transit; and Erik Goheen, a farmer who owns and operates a small farm in Redmond.

The conservation district distributes money for projects around the region, plants native trees and shrubs and does fire prevention work, among other responsibilities.

The National Association of Realtors is spending big to back candidates in Seattle and Spokane this election cycle.

According to an Oct. 6 filing with the Washington Public Disclosure Commission, NAR spent $225,781 in support of Seattle City Council candidates and $150,779 on Spokane City Council and mayoral candidates in the general election. NAR spent an additional $282,745 in Spokane during the primary, according to a July 7 filing.  

In Seattle, the Association spent $61,324 in support of Tanya Woo, District 2; $54,425 for Joy Hollingsworth, District 3; $57,404 for Maritza Rivera, District 4; and $52,628 for Bob Kettle, District 7. The money paid for direct mail, phone banking and online advertising in support of the candidates.

In Spokane, NAR spent $99,008 in support of mayoral candidate Nadine Woodward during the primary and another $4,165 for the general election so far. In the races for Spokane City Council, the group has spent $13,256 on Michael Cathcart (District 1) in the general and $66,574 on Earl Moore (District 3); $184,672 on Kim Plese (City Council President); and $65,847 on Katey Treloar (District 2) in the primary and general.

Crosscut reached out to the National Association of Realtors for comment on their investments in Seattle and Spokane elections and will update this story if they respond.

Chicago-based NAR is the country’s largest real estate industry trade association with more than 1.5 million members. The Association recently made national headlines when several of the country’s largest real estate brokerages, including Seattle-based Redfin, announced they were leaving the organization in the wake of sexual harassment allegations against its leadership and two antitrust class-action lawsuits.

The Spokane Public Library, in partnership with the Spokane NAACP and Thin Air Community Radio, hosts a mayoral and City Council president forum tonight from 6-8 p.m. at the downtown location, 906 W. Main Ave. 

Listen to the Candidate Forum & Town Hall on Thin Air Community Radio, a nonprofit radio station in Spokane, at 88.1 and 92.3FM, or streaming at KYRS.org. The livestream can also be found here, courtesy of Thin Air Community Radio. 

If interested in attending in person, registration is required. 

Nonpartisan incumbent Nadine Woodward faces former Democratic state Sen. Lisa Brown in the mayoral race. Current Spokane City Councilmember Betty Wilkerson will participate in tonight’s City Council president forum. Competitor Kim Plese will not be in attendance. 

Additional debates and forums currently planned for Spokane elections will continue through October. Confirmed events include:

• The Gonzaga University Climate Change Forum will be held on campus at Cataldo Hall on Wednesday, Oct. 4 at 6 p.m. All candidates for city office in Spokane have been invited to this event. Currently, Brown has accepted and Woodward has declined to participate.
• The Rotary Club of Spokane will host a debate for City Council president candidates on Thursday, Oct. 5 from noon to 1 p.m. in partnership with KXLY.
• The Spokesman-Review will host Spokane mayoral and City Council president debates on Oct. 11 at Gonzaga University. City Council president candidates will take the stage at the Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center at 6 p.m., followed by mayoral candidates at 7 p.m.
• KSPS, Spokane’s local PBS station, will hold City Council debates. Candidates for District 1 will debate on Tuesday, Oct. 10 from 10 a.m. to noon, with candidates from District 2 debating later that day from 2-4 p.m. Northwest Spokane candidates will debate Tuesday, Oct. 17 from 6:30-8 p.m., and Council president candidates will debate Wednesday, Oct. 18 from 10 a.m. to noon.
• KHQ and Greater Spokane Inc. will jointly host a mayoral debate on Oct. 17. KREM will host a mayoral debate on Oct. 26.