Incumbent Washington state representatives across the 19th and 20th legislative districts held the line against the blue wave after the first round of ballot counts as Republicans in other parts of the state — and the country — struggled.
State Reps. Joel McEntire, R-Cathlamet, Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen, Peter Abbarno, R-Chehalis, and Ed Orcutt, R-Kalama, all appear to have won by large margins, with those from the 20th Legislative District both leading by more than 10,000 votes.
Abbarno was in the best position of the four lawmakers after preliminary counts on Tuesday evening. The lawmaker and former Centralia City Council member had received 38,266 votes, representing 63.72% of the ballots counted so far. In brief comments Tuesday night, Abbarno described the lead as an endorsement from the community that transcends party lines.
A total of 21,641 ballots included in the first count went to Abbarno’s Democrat opponent, Andy Zahn, representing 36.03% of the vote. Abbarno has served in the Legislature since winning election in 2020 and will likely now serve a fourth two-year term.
The other representative from the 20th Legislative District, Orcutt, also looked to be in a very favorable position after the first count with 36,802 votes tallied in his favor, accounting for 61.30% of those counted Tuesday night.
Orcutt’s opponent, Evan Jones, received 38.49% of the vote in his favor, accounting for 23,107 votes. Orcutt will likely serve his 13th term as state representative. He was first appointed to a seat for the 18th District in 2002 and served there until redistricting relocated him to the 20th District, where he again won election to the state House of Representatives and has remained ever since.
Walsh, the Washington state GOP chairman and a representative from the 19th Legislative District, also appeared to be in a good position after the initial count, although the race was closer than those of his Republican colleagues from the 20th District. Walsh received 27,870 votes in his favor in the first count, worth 54.46% of the vote.
His Democrat opponent, Kevin Moynihan, received 23,241 votes, representing 42.42% of the ballots counted Tuesday night.
On Tuesday night, Walsh was unconcerned with his race in the 19th District and confident in Republican victory in his district, for both himself and McEntire, despite two labor-connected Democrat challengers in Moynihan and Terry Carlson.
He put on a brave face concerning the legislative outlook in a brief interview with The Chronicle Tuesday evening, painting an outlook more rosy for Republicans in the state than the consensus and urging patience for additional votes to be counted. He said he was confident Democrats would fall short of a supermajority, describing the election as “kind of a wash in the Legislature.”
“The game doesn’t really change a lot in Olympia,” Walsh said. “Not a lot changes here in Washington.”
That statement came despite reports of a relatively grim outlook for Republicans, as reported by The Washington State Standard Tuesday evening. Most notably for Southwest Washington, conservative incumbents trail Democrat challengers in two Southwest Washington legislative districts, the 17th and 18th.
Walsh was more optimistic about vote counts for an initiative that would bar transgender youth from playing in girls sports throughout the state, as well as at least two of the state's supreme court races.
Walsh’s seatmate, McEntire, had the smallest margin of apparent victory among the lawmakers in the 19th and 20th, but the initial count still appears to give him a margin that will hold, and McEntire has declared victory.
In the preliminary counts, 27,409 ballots came in support of McEntire’s re-election bid, representing 53.95% of the vote, while 23,281 ballots supported Democrat challenger Carlson, representing 45.82% of the vote.
