9th District GOP race tightens

OLYMPIA – The race for an Eastern Washington seat in the Statehouse tightened Thursday, with Mesa rancher Steve Hailey holding a 300-vote lead over Colfax farmer Joe Schmick in the Republican primary.

“The counting is not done. We don’t want to be overconfident,” said Hailey, former president of the state Cattlemen’s Association. “But right now, the figures are showing that we’re probably going to prevail.”

The four men are vying to replace retiring state Rep. Don Cox, R-Colfax. The winner of the primary will face Democrat Caitlin Ross in November.

A computer glitch on the state’s election Web site Tuesday night made it appear that Hailey was winning by a landslide. But Joanie Deutsch, a spokeswoman for the secretary of state’s office, said the data apparently didn’t come in from Whitman County – Schmick’s strongest area – until Wednesday morning.

Whitman County Auditor Eunice Coker said it was unclear what caused the problem.

“We posted (the results) to them,” she said. “I’ll have to look into it.”

Schmick, a farmer and businessman endorsed by the state Farm Bureau, said by e-mail Wednesday night that no matter which man wins, the GOP will be fielding an agricultural candidate in November. That, he said, “seems to be a positive for the entire 9th District.”

Hailey, who ran unsuccessfully for a House seat two years ago, led in four counties: Adams, Asotin, Garfield and his native Franklin County, where 87 percent of Republican voters cast ballots for him.

“The name recognition undoubtedly helped some,” he said, “and our operation was probably up quicker.” He also raised the most money – more than $26,000 – for the race.

Schmick, on the other hand, outpolled him 2-to-1 in Whitman County. The two men were virtually tied in the southern edge of Spokane County, with Schmick leading Hailey by just three votes.

Coming in third was Cheney’s Tedd Nealey, whose father was a well-known state representative in the 1980s and early 1990s.

“My opponents did a great job. It’s a huge district, with so many doors to knock on. They both did well at that,” said Nealey.

In distant fourth place was Glen Stockwell, who ran largely on a single issue: getting the government to build a long-planned water storage project to irrigate an additional half-million acres in Eastern Washington.

Nealey said Wednesday that he’s not sure that he’d run again. But he’ll keep his hand in politics, he said. When anti-smoking groups were circulating petitions for the state’s indoor public-smoking ban, Nealey collected more than 2,600 signatures.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be sitting on the sidelines,” he said.