Hundreds Gather in Tenino for Election-Night Culp Rally

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TENINO — John Mellencamp’s “R-o-c-k in the USA!” was blasting inside a giant barn by a live band as hundreds of conservatives came together in rural Tenino for Loren Culp’s election night rally Tuesday night.

It didn’t matter that as of 10:13 p.m. Gov. Jay Inslee had garnered 59 percent of the votes to Culp’s 40 percent and Culp had yet to concede defeat publicly at the rally at that time. Live bands kept playing 1980s rock and country music as the hundreds of supporters disregarded the state’s mask-wearing and social-distancing orders. 

Republican anti-tax activist Tim Eyman, who lost in the primary to Culp, came out to support his party and former opponent.

“An election night party is like Woodstock, you’ve got to go,” Eyman said. “With all the people that are enthusiastic about politics, the national election, the state elections and local elections, getting everybody together, I had to come.”

Inslee led in large swaths of Western Washington, from Whatcom County all the way down to Thurston County, with Culp taking rural Lewis and Cowlitz counties, along with most of Eastern Washington. 

When informed of the Associated Press calling the victory for Inslee around 8:30 p.m., Eyman was discouraged but not entirely surprised.

“It’s truly maddening for those of us that are conservative to see the state voting this way,” Eyman said. “People like Inslee, the worst of the worst Democrats, still has that letter ‘D’ after his name and that’s enough for a lot of voters in Seattle and it’s just agonizing because he’s just dumb as a stump. He’s just a buffoon, he’s killing businesses, people are dying but he’s got a ‘D’ next to his name. It just makes my head explode.”

People from all over the state converged in Tenino Monday night, despite many not being super optimistic about Culp’s chances at winning the governorship. Leslie Petoski and her husband drove over an hour from their home in Spanaway to attend the rally.

“We’re just following it to the end here,” Petoski said. “Look at what we’re going through with all these lockdowns, restrictions and uncertainties. This state is so degraded and collapsing in a lot of ways. We just go back to work. We just kind of go back to our lives.”



James Gilliland, who works for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in Olympia, grew up in a conservative family and has voted to the right in every election. He said the Republican party’s values are what keeps his support.

“Their values are more towards God and not killing babies. Home values, morals, backing law enforcement,” Gilliland said. “Democrats tend to use a lot of scare tactics and all that. One thing I’ve noticed is how conservatives are more straightforward.”

Election night was another defeating blow for Republicans as Democrats won their 10th-straight gubernatorial race in the state. The last Republican governor was John Spellman in 1985. Inslee, who was first elected governor in 2012, would be the first three-term governor of Washington since Republican Dan Evans won his third term in 1972.

Eyman said Inslee utilized a fear factor with voters during the COVID-19 pandemic to win the race against Culp this election cycle. Inslee’s lockdown of the economy, Eyman said, hyped up the fear and scared people, pushing them toward someone who would take care of them in this type of situation. That made it difficult for Culp to gain the extra support needed to win, he said.

“He kept saying, ‘I don’t want people to die. Me, I’m about saving lives,’” Eyman said. “It’s really hard for people to argue on the other side. Of course we’re for that too, but we’re for freedom and safety. You don’t have to choose between the two.”

Eyman now predicts a mass exodus of conservative voters leaving the state for Montana and Idaho due to the loss of businesses and economic crisis he says Inslee created with his prolonged lockdown of the state.

“I was born and raised in Washington, I’ll never go anywhere else, but I sympathize with people in Lewis County and these conservative counties going, ‘Why am I living in Washington? This is crazy,’” Eyman said.