Race to face Fagan in November remains close

The top finishers in two local races changed in the second day of counting ballots in Tuesday’s primary. In the race to face incumbent Spokane City Councilman Mike Fagan in the November election, Randy Ramos, a student recruiter at the Spokane Tribal College, edged ahead of Ben Krauss, a crime analyst with the Spokane Police Department. In the first count on Tuesday, Krauss held only a vote lead over Ramos. On Wednesday, Ramos led by 16 votes. There are about 130 votes left to count in the race. Most of those will be counted Thursday. If the difference between Ramos and Krauss – when only considering the ballots cast for those two candidates – is a half percent or less, the ballots will be recounted. After Wednesday’s count, the margin was just outside that recount requirement, said Spokane County Elections Manager Mike McLaughlin. Fagan was the top vote-getter in the race, garnering 49.8 percent of the vote. The top-two finishers will appear on the November ballot. In another close race that might not be decided for days, former Franklin County Sheriff Richard Lathim edged ahead of former Othello City Councilman Kenneth Caylor for the right to face incumbent state Rep. Mary Dye in the general election. Democrat Caylor was in second place after the ballots were counted on Election Night, but Republican Lathim went up by 161 votes Wednesday afternoon, after three of the southeast Washington’s three counties continued processing ballots. All three – Spokane, Franklin and Adams – were counties where Lathim was polling ahead of Caylor. Two counties where Caylor ran stronger on election night, Asotin and Whitman, aren’t scheduled to count more ballots until later in the week. Dye, who is also a Republican, was appointed to fill southeastern Washington’s 9th Legislative District seat after Rep. Susan Fagan resigned this spring and has nearly half the votes counted thus far. Under the state’s top two primary system, she’ll face the second-place finisher regardless of party.