Walsh Leads Frasier By Narrow Margin

Incumbent Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen looks like he will retain his seat as state representative in the 19th legislative district by a slim margin.

“I’ve never been ahead on election night before, so this is a good feeling,” Walsh said. “... This is truly about what we projected. The goal for us, and in the campaign, was to be ahead on election night and we are just ahead on election night.”

Erin Frasier, D-Pe Ell challenged incumbent Walsh for the 19th legislative district, state representative position 1.

Results show Walsh has 50.34 percent of the vote district wide, with Frasier securing 49.66 percent of the vote in the district.

In Lewis County, Walsh is leading with 69.02 percent of the vote. Frasier currently has 30.98 percent of the vote in Lewis County.

Frasier noted that the final results aren’t in yet on Tuesday evening.

“We’re watching (the results) right now and it’s a pretty close race,” Frasier said. “We’re excited and there are still a lot of ballots to be counted.”

Walsh, who was elected in 2016, is the assistant ranking member on the Business and Financial Services Committee, and a member of both the Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee and the Capital Budget Committee. 

Frasier has never held elected office, but has experience as a policy associate at the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, was an adjunct faculty member, associate dean and director of Pacific County Programming and the WorkFirst assistant director at Grays Harbor College.

The race for state representative position 1 in the 19th legislative district has been hotly contested. Walsh and Frasier were the only two candidates who ran, but the two candidates were neck and neck during the primary.

Initial results on Aug. 7 showed that Frasier led Walsh with 51.11 percent of the vote in the district. Walsh was initially the runner up, with 48.89 percent of the vote. 

At the time, Walsh noted that late ballots tend to cut in a conservative direction. Ultimately, he won the primary with 50.19 percent of the vote in the state. There were a total of 35,074 votes in the district and Walsh won by less than 150 votes. In Lewis County, specifically, Walsh won by a much larger margin and garnered 66.32 of the vote during the primary.