Goldmark wins lands commissioner race

SEATTLE – Democrat Peter Goldmark emerged as the winner in the state lands commissioner race Thursday, relying on the support of environmentalists and strong backing in King County to unseat two-term incumbent Doug Sutherland.

After more than two days of vote counting, the Okanogan rancher and molecular biologist built an insurmountable lead, 51.1 percent to 48.9 percent.

“I am so grateful to the people of Washington for their support in restoring public trust to the management of our public lands,” Goldmark said in a written statement from his 8,000-acre wheat and cattle ranch. “My goal is sustainable management of public resources, transparency in management and reliance on science and law in decision making.”

Sutherland declined to concede, saying, “There’s a lot of counties where we have pretty strong support that have to be counted.”

He said he didn’t expect the result to be clear until tonight, but an Associated Press analysis showed there were not enough outstanding votes in those counties to give Sutherland the win.

Goldmark won with the backing of environmentalists and had the support of more than 62 percent of voters in King County. During the campaign he painted Sutherland as too cozy with timber and mining interests, which donated heavily to the Republican’s campaign.

Goldmark also seized on landslides and widespread floods in Lewis County last winter, saying they were partly the result of irresponsible logging allowed by Sutherland.