A hand recount in the Commissioner of Public Lands race shows that Democrat Dave Upthegrove has the votes to face off against former U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, the Republican who came in first place in the August primary. The mandatory recount found nearly identical results between the second- and third-place candidates.
Upthegrove defeated Republican Sue Kuehl Pederson for second place, with 396,304 votes to 396,255 – a difference of 49 votes. The total was finalized and updated after King County certified its votes on Wednesday. Upthegrove gained six votes in the recount and Kuehl Pederson gained four. The unofficial count was posted to the Secretary of State’s website on Tuesday, and was certified Wednesday at noon.
The recount was triggered when the initial count found that 51 votes out of 1.9 million cast separated them for second and third place after the primary was certified last month. Both campaigns “cured” thousands of ballots in the weeks between the primary day and the certification deadline by contacting voters whose ballots were rejected because of fixable errors.
In a primary, the state requires an automatic hand recount when the difference between the second- and third-place candidates is less than one quarter of one percent and also less than 1,000 votes.
In a top-two primary, the two candidates with the most votes face each other in the general election, regardless of party. This year in the Commissioner of Public Lands primary, about 42% of voters chose one of the two Republicans, and about 57% of voters chose one of the five Democrats. No single candidate got more than 22% of the vote.
The Commissioner of Public Lands position oversees the state’s Department of Natural Resources, which includes managing nearly six million acres of state-owned public lands and the state’s response to wildfires.
The general election is Nov. 5.
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