Turnout carries Wesen, Muzzall and Gilday to election wins

The counting is not over, but only one Skagit County or Legislative District 10 election result is not certain: the Skagit Superior Court Judge Position 3 contest between public defender Elizabeth Yost Neidzwski and Mount Vernon attorney Tom Seguine. Yost Neidzwski had a 287 vote lead after Monday’s vote count, a slight increase from Friday’s numbers. Seguine needs 60% of the remaining 1,500 ballots outstanding to win.

Republican County Commissioner Ron Wesen has won re-election against retired Anacortes commercial fisherman Mark Lundsten with 53% of the vote. Lundsten had not called Wesen but in a Sunday Facebook post congratulated Wesen supporters on their success. Lundsten noted that Wesen’s margin is almost completely in District 3, eastern Skagit County in an email to the Weekly News Monday.

Peter Browning has won by the largest margin of any county candidate, beating Mount Vernon Councilmember Mary Hudson by over 11,000 votes in the District 2 County Commissioner race. He credits his win on “running Non-Partisan made it clear to people that I will look at the views from both parties in the decision-making process and determine what is best for our community,” in his email response.

Sen. Ron Muzzall (R-Oak Harbor), returns to Olympia, now elected to his Legislative District 10 seat. Democratic Island County Commissioner Helen Price Johnson called Muzzall last week and conceded on Facebook Thursday, writing that the “small number of votes left to count, they will not change the end result in my race.” Muzzall has 50.9% of the district vote, though Price Johnson leads by 335 votes in Skagit County precincts.

Muzzall credited his win to “staying on message” in an email to the Weekly News. Some 1,700 ballots are uncounted in the multi-county district, almost all in Skagit County. It is not known how many outstanding ballots there are from LD 10 precincts, the southwestern portion of the county and northwestern Snohomish County.

Price Johnson saw her campaign hindered by the “pandemic and larger political winds” and 2010 gerrymandering of the 10th LD.

Stanwood attorney Greg Gilday, a Republican, has increased his lead against former Democratic Island County Commissioner Angie Homola to 850 votes districtwide for the LD 10 state representative Position 1 after Monday. Homola’s Skagit County lead is down to 518 votes.

In an email to the Weekly News, Gilday credited his win to “personally contact(ing) over 10,000 voters.”

Homola had posted on her Facebook page Thursday, recognizing she would “need to earn almost all of the remaining votes” to win. Tuesday, her email assessment aligned with Price Johnson’s: “Losses in this race are due largely to the 2010 redistricting that shifted votes to the San Juans’ 40th District and created an almost perfect 60:40 Republican/Democrat dominance in every precinct in Snohomish County’s portion of the 10th LD.”

LD 10 Position 2 Rep. Dave Paul (D-Oak Harbor) increased his lead to 760 votes over Skagit County Republican Party Chair Bill Bruch Monday. Paul’s margin in the Skagit County precincts is 944 votes. Monday afternoon Bruch believed he had a mathematical possibility.

Paul noted that his Democratic peers did not have in-person door knocking canvases and wrote in an email “I suspect all of our vote percentages would have been higher if we had the opportunity to communicate directly to voters in their neighborhoods.”

Skagit County had 1,500 ballots to count after Monday, 13% of the 11,303 uncounted votes statewide. It is the only large population county statewide with more than 400 votes uncounted.