Joel McEntire talks to citizens during his section of Meet the Candidates Tuesday night at the TransAlta Commons in Centralia College campus.
State Representative Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen, voices his support for republican gubernatorial candidate Loren Culp at Morton’s Sept. 19 “freedom rally.”
Both Republican candidates for the two state Representative seats in the 19th District have taken early leads, according to the initial ballot count on Tuesday evening.
As of Tuesday, Republican incumbent for the first state Rep. position Jim Walsh had received 57.7 percent of the vote while his Democratic opponent Marianna Everson received 42.2 percent of the vote.
In the race for the second state Rep. seat, Republican challenger Joel McEntire had 51 percent of the vote while eight-term Democratic incumbent Brian Blake had about 49 percent, as of Tuesday.
Within Lewis County, Republicans were heavily favored as of Tuesday. Walsh and McEntire claimed 76.3 and 71 percent of the votes, respectively, and Everson and Blake managed to get 23.6 and 28.9 percent of the votes, respectively.
The likely wins for both Republican candidates and Republican Jeff Wilson who took on Democratic incumbent Dean Takko in the state Senator race, marks a republican takeover in District 19 that has traditionally been considered a Democratic outpost in Southwest Washington.
“I think this shows that the people of the 19th district want a clear and strong conservative voice to represent them in Olympia,” Walsh said, who had a small gathering at his house to watch election results.
“What we’re about is bringing private sector jobs to the area and trying to get a better shake for our schools and doing something about the Department of Ecology’s regulatory process … these are the values of the district, people can try to bring other values into the district, but I just don’t think they fly,” Walsh added.
McEntire, who was at the Cowlitz County Republican Party headquarters in Kelso, said he isn’t calling anything yet because the margin of difference was too close, but it was a positive showing nonetheless.
He added that it was great to see Republicans around the district have success in their respective races, but his early lead was particularly sweet.
“It was clear my race was going to be the hardest. Out of any local Democrat that was going to hang on, it was going to be Brian Blake,” McEntire said.
Blake and Everson acknowledged that they are fighting uphill battles in their races, but Blake was not ready to concede just yet with the margin of difference just two points apart and Everson expressed optimism that she made it as far as she did.
“We knew it was going to be a tough election and were going to wait and see how the next couple of ballot counts go and go from there,” Blake said.
“Nobody thought we were going to make it this far … we are up against someone who has a lot of money, name recognition and an incumbent, so we knew it was going to be hard,” Everson said. “But this is just the beginning for me.”
The 19th legislative district covers the Southwest corner of Lewis County, west of Interstate 5 in Cowlitz County, south of U.S. Highway 12 in Grays Harbor County and all of Pacific and Wahkiakum Counties.
Election results can be found at https://results.vote.wa.gov/results/20201103/lewis/
Background on Race for State Rep. Position No. 1
The race for District 19’s first state Rep. seat features two candidates that ideologically find themselves on the opposite ends of the political spectrum with Walsh, a Republican who supports President Donald Trump and Everson, a progressive Democrat.
Walsh is looking to reclaim his seat for a third term after surprising many in the 19th District by eking out a win over then-Democratic challenger Teresa Purcell by about 1 percentage point in 2016.
Since Walsh’s 2016 victory, Democrats have expressed concerns that the district is moving to the right, which was apparent in the 2020 primary election.
In the Aug. 4 primary election for the first state Rep. seat, Walsh was overwhelmingly favored garnering about 58 percent of the votes. Everson trailed by more than 30 percentage points, getting about 22 percent of the votes and Republican Clint Bryson also captured about 20 percent.
In Lewis County, Walsh saw even more support. He walked away with about 76 percent of District 19 votes within the county while Everson claimed about 13 percent and Bryson got about 10 percent.
According to Walsh, who lives in Aberdeen, he began his career in politics after spending 20-plus years working in the private sector for Merritt Publishing and then as the owner of his own publishing company, Silverlake Publishing.
In the 2000’s Walsh got involved with the Republican Liberty Caucus in Grays Harbor County, a libertarian arm of the Republican Party and worked his way to being elected as the vice chairman of the Washington Republican Party in 2014.
Walsh says his campaign is focused on two issues affecting the district: local economic growth and school funding.
He has been an advocate for the private sector and similarly to his peers, has said he wants to see the state’s regulatory processes be loosened to allow more natural resource-based businesses to grow.
He has also voiced his support for schools to be better funded by the state, saying they’ve been on the “short end of the stick” on a number of policy and funding issues.
According to Everson, who lives in Montesano, she is a “progressive Democrat” who went from being a single mother who became homeless after a fire consumed her house to challenging Walsh for his seat.
She has said that the various social services that were provided to her — like section 8 housing, food stamps and others — while she was homeless inspired her to advocate for them in the legislative process.
Everson is currently a nurse and her campaign has echoed progressives’ call for a universal healthcare system.
Seeing that large corporations pay their fair share in taxes has also been a focal point of her campaign. In her debate against Walsh, she pointed to large corporations like Walmart and the world’s wealthiest men, like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, turning a profit during the pandemic while working-class people suffer as evidence that a progressive change in the tax code is needed.
Background on Race for State Rep. Position No. 2
The race for the 19th District’s second state Representative pegs Blake, who is seeking his ninth term in his seat, against McEntire, a reserve in the U.S. Marines and also is a program mentor at Western Governors University.
The race is a rematch from the 2018 election where Blake won with 54 percent of the votes and McEntire lost with 46 percent.
In the 2020 primary election for the second state Rep. seat, McEntire flipped the script from 2018 and led the way against the eight-term incumbent with about 53 percent of the district-wide votes while Blake received about 47 percent.
Within Lewis County, McEntire received even more support — about 75 percent of the votes — and Blake got about 25 percent.
According to McEntire, a Cathlamet native, he first dipped his toe into politics in college at Central Washington University where he got involved with the College Republicans and was elected as the vice president of the Kittitas County Republican Party.
Prior to going to school at CWU, McEntire enlisted in the Marines and has been deployed to the Middle East multiple times.
His most recent deployment was to Kuwait in 2018 — right when he was running against Blake the first time — which he said effectively made campaigning impossible.
In 2020, McEntire has been vocal about his disdain for “Seattle politicians,” claiming they are harming Southwest Washington communities and has accused Blake of allowing them to have influence on the region.
Among other issues McEntire has promised to fight for throughout his campaign are lowering taxes, accountability in government and getting citizens back to work during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Blake, a Longview resident, who will tell you his family lineage in Southwest Washington dates back to the 19th century, has held the second state Rep. seat in District 19 since 2002 when he was appointed to the position.
He has won eight consecutive reelection bids and is looking for a ninth.
According to Blake, he entered the political arena in the 1990’s after leading a successful local effort to allow fishing and hunting to take place at Elk River in Grays Harbor County and was told he should run for office by other citizens involved.
Blake has touted his ability to work with both Democrats and Republicans over the years and also his advocacy for fish and wildlife.
As the chair of the state House committee on Rural Development, Agriculture and Natural Resources, Blake said he is constantly working to make sure that natural resource industries get a “fair shake” in the legislative and regulatory process.
