By Monday evening, Upthegrove had 395,812 votes and Kuehl Pederson had 395,619, a difference of 193 votes – about 0.02% of their total votes. There were an estimated 1,350 votes left to count around the state, including 300 in King County, where Upthegrove got 34% of the vote, and 377 in Benton County, where Kuehl Pederson has received about 34% of the vote.
The difference between Upthegrove and Kuehl Pederson will almost certainly trigger an automatic recount. Automatic machine recounts in the primary occur when the difference between the second- and third-place candidates is less than one half of one percent of their total, and also is less than 2,000 votes. An automatic hand recount occurs when the difference between the candidates is less than one quarter of one percent and also less than 1,000 votes.
Upthegrove, chair of the King County Council, and Kuehl Pederson, a real estate investor who also worked at Seattle and Grays Harbor public utilities in the early 2000s, have run neck-and-neck for second place since the Aug. 6 election.
The deadline for counties to certify ballots is Aug. 20, and the state’s deadline for certification is Aug. 23. Any recount would start after certification.
The Commissioner of Public Lands position oversees the Department of Natural Resources, which includes managing nearly six million acres of state-owned public lands and the state’s response to wildfires. The seat was left open when current commissioner Hilary Franz said she would not run for reelection, first declaring she would run for governor, then deciding to run for an open position in the 6th Congressional District. (Franz came in third in that primary.)
The race was split seven ways, with two Republicans, Kuehl Pedersen and Herrera Beutler. Upthegrove was on the ballot with four other Democrats, with Franz-backed Patrick DePoe bringing in about 14% of the vote and former state legislator Kevin Van De Wege drawing 7%.
Automatic recounts are not unusual in Washington state. Washington’s most famous recount was in the 2004 gubernatorial election, when Democrat Chris Gregoire and Republican Dino Rossi faced off for the seat vacated by Gov. Gary Locke. Rossi won the initial count by 261 votes, but a mandated machine recount (which had Rossi ahead by 42 votes) was followed by a hand recount requested by the state Democratic Party, and Gregoire won by 129 votes.
With Washington’s top-two primaries – in which the top two vote-getters proceed to the general election – it’s not unheard of to have two people from the same party face off in the general election. It happens often in legislative races in districts that lean to the right or left politically. But it also happens in statewide races. In 2020, Democrats Denny Heck and Marko Liias shut out Republicans in the race for lieutenant governor, and in 2016, Republicans Duane Davidson and Michael Waite shut out three Democrats in the race for state treasurer. Davidson won in the general election, but lost his 2020 reelection bid to Democrat Mike Pellicciotti.
