Dolan concedes race to Benson

Spokane’s staunchly Republican 6th Legislative District will remain in GOP hands despite Democrat Laurie Dolan’s hard-fought battle against Brad Benson.

Benson, who just finished his fourth term in the state House of Representatives, said he was grateful for the chance to represent residents of the 6th District as a state senator.

“It was a tough campaign year,” said Benson, who defeated the appointed incumbent, Brian Murray, in the Republican primary. “But I’m thankful that voters stayed with me.”

On Tuesday, Dolan conceded to Benson. “Brad ran one of the cleanest campaigns of the election season,” she said in a letter to supporters. “I wish him the very best as he assumes the 6th District state Senate seat.”

Roughly 1,000 votes separate Dolan and Benson and an estimated 8,000 absentee and provisional ballots remain to be counted. But Benson’s lead is so large that Dolan would need more than 60 percent of the remaining votes to win.

While Dolan had a slight lead in some groups of absentee ballots and Benson won among voters who went to the polls, neither has approached such a large majority in any of the vote counts.

In the House races, John Ahern, the two-term incumbent in the Position 2 seat, easily trounced Democratic opponent Doug Dobbins. Another Republican, John Serben, won his race against Democrat Don Barlow for the House seat left by Benson’s Senate run. Nearly 1,900 votes separated the two Tuesday afternoon.

No Democrat has been elected to this Republican stronghold since before World War II. But Dolan’s challenge to Benson was the closest a Democrat has come to winning a legislative seat in the district since 1986, when Republican John Moyer beat Democrat Jan Polek by 83 votes.

Since that race, the next smallest margin for a Democrat in the 6th was two years ago, when Dolan and Senate veteran Jim West waged what became the most expensive legislative race in state history. West beat Dolan by about 1,300 votes in 2002, but gave up his seat last year when he won the mayor’s race.

This year, the race between her and Benson was even closer.

With nearly 60,000 ballots counted in the district, precinct returns show Benson with his strongest majorities in the northwest parts of the city of Spokane and the suburbs north and east of the city limits. He won handily in most Indian Trails, Whitworth, Mead and West Plains precincts, and in a few heavy-voting South Hill precincts along High Drive and near Manito Country Club.

Dolan won the majority of precincts closer to downtown, capturing the most votes in Shadle Park, as well as the Manito, Cannon Hill and Comstock park areas of the South Hill. The candidates essentially split precincts in Lincoln Heights, Moran Prairie and along Latah Creek.

Although Dolan did better in most precincts than any of the Democrats at the top of her party’s ticket, it wasn’t enough to win.

West endorsed Benson in a flier sent to households the week before the election and “that hurt us in the end,” said Dolan. This election year also brought out an unprecedented number of voters and many Republicans in the 6th voted along party lines, she said.

Many conservative voters also made it to the polls and cast their ballot for Benson, an evangelical Christian. “I would hope they would vote for me,” said Benson. “I share their values and issues.”

While Dolan was endorsed by several well-known Republicans in the area, Benson said he was able to win the votes of many pro-life Democrats.

During the campaign, Dolan said, she met several people who labeled her as “immoral” because she ran as a Democrat.

“For 30 years of my life I have helped children and families overcome significant obstacles to keep their families intact,” she said, noting that she also spent many years teaching teens that abstinence is one of the best of many choices during sex education. “Labeling each other as ‘moral’ or ‘immoral’ based on either political party or choice of religion confounds our efforts to find the significant answers that will unite our community and move us forward by working together.”

Benson said a combination of factors helped him win the close race. West’s last-minute mailing was “nice,” he said, but his background and the fact that he brought his conservative agenda to more than 12,000 doors in the last few weeks also made a difference. He added that his decision to refrain from negative campaigning likely contributed to his victory.

A former banker and small-business owner, Benson said he has asked to be assigned to the following committees: financial institutions, health care and ways and means.

In the meantime, Benson said, he’s busy taking care of details – from removing all his campaign signs in town to preparing for training in Guam with the Air National Guard, in which he serves as a major.

During the phone conversation with Dolan, he wished her well and told her to take a much-needed vacation, he said. Before hanging up, she arranged for Benson to meet with her and Spokane Public Schools Superintendent Brian Benzel to discuss issues affecting education.

Although she lost the chance of representing the 6th for the second time, Dolan said she has kept things in perspective. She did, after all, survive her battle against cancer just a year after losing the Senate seat against West. Her immediate plans include collaborating with her husband, Art Dolan, who is also a retired educator, on a children’s book on democracy and the Bill of Rights.

“I think that we probably did a good job getting people to think outside the box,” said Dolan, 52. “The answers are in the middle and we need to have a vision of the community working together. We need people in leadership roles that can bring others together and find the creative answers to complex problems.”