u 2010 Washington Primary Election

One sure sign that fall is easing into winter is that political types are complaining about how long it takes to count ballots in Washington state. This rant usually starts about three days after an election, when the results of most races have been known for two days but a few close contests hang in the balance. This year, the main target of the whining is a state Supreme Court race, which on Friday was still somewhat in doubt. Read more

State Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders fell further behind challenger Charlie Wiggins on Friday and acknowledged he was unlikely to turn the campaign around. Wiggins got a boost in his vote total from ballots tabulated in King County, and has a lead of about 5,700 votes going into the weekend. Read more

Voters in King County have helped Charlie Wiggins hang onto the lead in his bid to oust incumbent Justice Richard Sanders. Read more

Washington state Democrats want the Public Disclosure Commission to go after a group that spent money against some of their legislative candidates but hasn’t revealed where the money comes from.They filed a complaint today against Americans For Prosperity Washington, an offshoot of the national Americans For Prosperity, for campaign ads against Sens. … Read more

Spokane County Treasurer Skip Chilberg conceded defeat Tuesday to his general election challenger, Rob Chase. Chilberg said he called Chase to offer his congratulations. Read more

Former Appeals Court Judge Charlie Wiggins took a narrow lead over incumbent Justice Richard Sanders in Washington’s tight Supreme Court race Tuesday afternoon. An analysis of voting patterns suggests Wiggins will finish ahead of Sanders and take his place on the state’s highest court when all remaining ballots are counted. Read more

Former Appeals Court Judge Charlie Wiggins took a narrow lead over incumbent Justice Richard Sanders in Washington’s tight Supreme Court race Tuesday afternoon.An analysis of voting patterns suggests Wiggins will finish ahead of Sanders and take his place on the state’s highest court when all remaining ballots are counted.Sanders, an outspoken jurist with libertarian leanings, was first elected to the state’s highest court in 1995 and re-elected twice since. … Read more

Challenger Charlie Wiggins has taken the lead of about 3,500 votes over Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders on the strength of King County ballots tabulated at 4:30 p.m. Pierce and several other counties,  where Sanders has been ahead since election night, are scheduled to report at 5 p.m. or slightly later.Stay tuned. Read more

Charlie Wiggins took the lead in Washington state’s tight Supreme Court race, inching ahead of incumbent Justice Richard Sanders. Read more

Challenger Charlie Wiggins is cutting into Justice Richard Sanders’ lead in the contest for a state Supreme Court seat. Read more

OLYMPIA — With challenger Charlie Wiggins closing the gap on Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders— and some media outlets predicting Wiggins will win the race — Sanders’ campaign sent out a plea to supporters for money for a possible recount.”Don’t let Wiggins steal this election” is the subject line of the e-mail asking for money fora fund “to get all the ballots counted.” It notes there are some 17,000 ballots that need to have voters clear up questions with signatures.In an interview with AP’s Rachel La Corte, Sanders said he didn’t authorize the headline on the fund-raising e-mail and says it shouldn’t say that. … Read more

Trying to buy an election by self-financing a campaign is a bad investment, a study from the Center for Responsive Politics says.Only about one  in five candidates who poured a half-million dollars or more into their own campaigns came out a winner last week. … Read more

OLYMPIA – Washington politicians who had any doubt the public is in no mood for more taxes should have had that cleared up Tuesday. For the budget struggles ahead next year, voter sentiment is clear: Don’t ask us for more money, cut the budget. Voters sank a proposal for a state income tax on the wealthy, struck down temporary taxes on soda, candy, bottled water and some processed foods, and reinstated a two-thirds supermajority for passing any new taxes. Read more

Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen continues to expand his lead over Republican challenger John Koster. Read more

With the 2010 election all over but the counting – admittedly the counting still is important in a few races – it seems appropriate to look back over the campaign. It was an avalanche of nasty ads, debates over debates, commercials and visits from out-of-state big shots played out against a backdrop of voters worried about their next paycheck, house payment or bag of groceries. And that’s looking at things as an optimist. Maybe the best that can be said about it is, it’s over. But before it fades from memory, here are some of the highlights and lowlifes of Campaign 2010. Read more

With the 2010 election all over but the counting – admittedly the counting still is important in a few races – it seems appropriate to look back over the campaign.It was an avalanche of nasty ads, debates over debates commercials and visits from out-of-state big shots played out against a backdrop of voters worried about their next paycheck, house payment or bag of groceries. … Read more

Spokane County tallied 11,111 move ballots Friday from the Nov. 2 election. An unusual looking number that didn’t create any unusual twists in the standings.Republican challenger Al French leads Democratic County Commissioner Bonnie Mager by about 1,100 votes. Republican challenger Rob Chase leads Democratic County Treasurer Skip Chilberg by about 1,000 votes. … Read more

Washington elections officials say a late surge in ballots will likely push the turnout for Tuesday’s election to 70 percent or higher. Read more

OLYMPIA — Turnout for last Tuesday’s election is higher than expected and may set a record for a mid-year election, Secretary of State Sam Reed said today.State elections officials were projecting a turnout of 66 percent for the mid-term, but are now revising that upwards to 70 percent or more. Both political parties had massive get out the vote efforts, both when ballots first arrived in mailboxes in mid October and again in the closing days of the campaign. … Read more

Democrat Patty Murray won a fourth term in the U.S. Senate, building a lead of nearly 50,000 votes over Republican rival Dino Rossi as counting continued Thursday. Faced with a near mathematical impossibility of catching her even though hundreds of thousands of votes remain to be counted, Rossi conceded Thursday evening. Read more

SEATTLE – Democrats were holding onto slim leads in three races in King and Snohomish counties that will decide which party controls the state Senate next year, Thursday’s ballot returns showed. Sen. Steve Hobbs, D-Lake Stevens, extended his small lead over Republican challenger Dave Schmidt to about 250 votes. Sen. Rodney Tom, D-Medina, extended his margin to about 630 votes. In the Federal Way-area 30th District, Democratic Sen. Tracey Eide’s lead held steady with more than 660 votes. Read more

SEATTLE – Bainbridge Island attorney Charlie Wiggins is cutting into the slim lead held by Justice Richard Sanders as Sanders tries to retain his seat on the Washington state Supreme Court. In updated vote totals Thursday evening, Sanders led 50.6 percent to 49.4 percent. That was a slight improvement for Wiggins, who trailed by 2 percentage points to start the day. Read more

Patty Murray’s lead in the U.S. Senate race became insurmountable Thursday, prompting Republican challenger Dino Rossi to concede at 6:15 p.m. Read more

The race between Steve Tucker and Frank Malone shows some very noticeable splits between precincts insided the city and outside the city.These numbers come from the vote totals released Thursday evening. Read more

President Barack Obama and Sen. Mitch McConnell had two very different takes on what the American people were saying on Tuesday, and what they plan to do about it. Read more

The City of Spokane’s Proposition 1 was pretty unpopular, as the map above shows.It had some small “yes” margins around the downtown core and a few precincts to the north and south. But it went from no to “hell no” as the precincts got further and further from the core, demonstrating what a tough election this was for anything to do with taxes. Read more

Higher taxes on candy, gum, bottled water and pop will soon be gone. Read more

Republican challenger and former state Rep. John Ahern is comfortably ahead of incumbent Democrat in the 6th District House race. As this computer mapping of their vote totals shows, Ahern has large vote margins on the edges of the City of Spokane and beyond, while Driscoll’s strength is inside the city limits, particularly on the lower South Hill. Read more

Democratic incumbent Patty Murray and Republican challenger Dino Rossi headed into a third day of vote tallies today with no clear winner in Washington state’s U.S. Senate race. Read more

Democrat Chris Marr conceded defeat Wednesday night in the record-breaking million-dollar battle for a Spokane County state Senate seat. Marr made up some ground in the second day of ballot counting against Republican Michael Baumgartner, but he said it was too little to make a difference. Read more

Doug’s Election Night Diary. 7:40 – I drive first to Spokane’s Lincoln Center where the Democrats are hanging out. If the early returns hold up, it looks like their evening is about to become an inflamed hemorrhoid of Biblical proportion. So I want to hit and run before someone wises up and yells, “Let’s string up the wiseacre columnist!” Read more

SEATTLE – Justice Richard Sanders maintained a narrow lead in his bid for a fourth term on the state Supreme Court as more votes were counted Wednesday, but challenger Charlie Wiggins said he was encouraged by his performance in the state’s most populous county. Sanders had 51 percent of the vote to 49 percent for Wiggins. About two-thirds of the statewide vote has been counted, but a significant portion of the uncounted ballots were in King County, where Wiggins was collecting nearly 57 percent. Read more

Washington has killer election websites when they work. “There is no state in the country that has this sophisticated an election-night reporting system,” state Elections Director Nick Handy said. Read more

Washington has killer election websites when they work. “There is no state in the country that has this sophisticated an election-night reporting system,” state Elections Director Nick Handy said. Read more

Close races remained close Wednesday after the latest Spokane County ballot totals were released this evening. But for some candidates who were counting on a big surge, the new numbers fell short. Read more