Valley Voters Show Satisfaction With Legislative Delegation
Republican incumbents were winners in the three 4th District legislative races. Sen. Bob McCaslin and Reps. Larry Crouse and Mark Sterk, all GOP candidates, were re-elected Tuesday by wide margins.
In the closest race, McCaslin collected 53.7 percent of the votes on his way to defeating challenger George Orr, a Democrat, for the 4th District’s Senate seat.
McCaslin’s victory sends him to Olympia for a fifth term, and denies Orr, a former state representative, the opportunity to serve in both the Senate and House.
In the one contested House race, Crouse downed Democrat Frank Galizia, winning 58.5 percent of the votes. Galizia, a Valley optometrist, was trying to knock off Crouse, who defeated Orr in 1994 to win his first term as a representative.
Sterk ran unopposed to win his first full term in office. The Spokane police sergeant was appointed to the District 4 seat in 1995 to fill the unexpired term of Mike Padden, who resigned to become a District Court judge. Later that year, Sterk was elected to finish Padden’s term.
, DataTimes