Dixit beat Bingle by 156 votes. But could it have been even closer?

Incoming Spokane Councilwoman Sarah Dixit defeated incumbent Jonathan Bingle by 156 votes in Spokane’s northeast council district.

But had the district not been redrawn in 2022 to include downtown, the race might have been much closer.

A progressive, Dixit wrested control away from the last bastion of conservatism in the city. Currently represented by Bingle and Michael Cathcart, District 1 stretches east of Division and north of Trent Avenue. Starting next year, Cathcart will be the last conservative on the council.

When the Spokane City Council redrew their districts, downtown west of Division was added to the district . These three precincts in the heart of downtown netted Dixit 256 votes, which is just 100 more than her winning margin.

Still, considering areas that were moved from the northeast council district to the southern district during the redistricting, Dixit likely would have eked out a win, albeit by a smaller margin.

Dixit said she did not see downtown central to her electoral strategy.

“Downtown was actually a place where we had a really hard time canvassing and doing voter outreach because of all the apartments. So we weren’t focusing a lot of our attention there,” she said.

Dixit believes Bingle lost that area because his message on crime and homelessness was too dark.

“Many people including Jonathan like to use downtown as a talking point. So for me, it was important to make sure that as I was campaigning, that I was mentioning how wonderful downtown is, and I think that resonated for a lot of people who live downtown and don’t want to necessarily be villainized by certain political rhetoric,” she said.

Dixit got her largest margins of votes just outside of downtown in the area in and around Gonzaga University. She won these precincts by 23.6% and 14.8% respectively.

Dixit credited these victories with her campaign’s efforts to mobilize and register college students. The candidate also attended various events and even organized within some school clubs.

“Gonzaga is the heart of this city. And in elections I worry sometimes they are ignored. It was important to me that we didn’t ignore them.”

While maintaining that everyone living in Spokane has the right to vote here, Bingle has “questions” over whether transplant college students should have more sway than a lifelong resident of Hillyard.

“For the folks who have lived here, and Hillyard has always been their home, having a bunch of university students determining their representation, I think, is at least something that is worth a discussion,” he said. “People going to Gonzaga could be seen as people of privilege determining the fate of the district that is underprivileged.”

A transplant to Spokane herself, Dixit called this argument a slippery slope toward an attack on voting rights.

“We should not be comparing votes to see if they should matter more or less. Right now there’s a lot of attacks on voting rights and things like that. So I think it’s important to affirm that, you know, every vote and every voice counts in this race,” she said.

Bingle added he was “definitely not” suggesting college students who grew up outside Spokane should be barred from voting in Spokane elections. He also sees the election result as a legitimate outcome of a fair electoral process.

Redistricting

The addition of these critical downtown precincts raises the question about whether Dixit still would have won had the race taken place in the previous map.

While those areas downtown were added, other areas were removed. In the new maps, an area between Trent Avenue and the freeway was taken from District 1 to District 2, which encompasses the south of Spokane.

That precinct, and District 2 as a whole, were won by Kate Telis, who defeated fellow Democrat Alejandro Barrientos. Though the race lacked candidates of different parties, Barrientos’ biggest financial backers were some of the most prominent conservative voices in the city.

If Telis supporters backed Dixit and Barrientos supporters backed Bingle, Dixit would still have won, though by just 24 votes.

Under those assumptions, Dixit’s margin of victory would drop by 132 votes to 24 votes, allowing her to win the race with 50.1%. If that had been the result, an automatic recount would have been triggered. But her current margin was large enough to avoid a recount.

Bingle claimed the 2022 maps were “gerrymandered” to favor Spokane’s progressive majority.

“Zack Zappone gerrymandered the district and made 1.5% more liberal. Even then I don’t think necessarily that’s why I lost,” he said.

Zappone, who drew the 2022 maps, denied the electoral districts were drawn with partisan advantage in mind.

Zappone points to a race in the same district in 2023 where conservative Michael Cathcart defeated his opponent by more than ten percentage points.

“You can’t make an argument that it was an unfair map when a conservative just won two years ago by substantial margin. I would say it depends on the candidates and it depends on the race. In this case, it’s clear that Sarah Dixit was more popular than Jonathan Bingle,” he said.