Tuesday’s primary in Clark County resembled one of those low-cost, family buffet restaurants: few surprises, and something on the menu to whet just about everyone’s appetite.
At both the state (U.S. Senate) and local (3rd Congressional District) levels, Democrats can boast of having candidates receiving the highest percentages of votes, but Republicans can present a strong counter-argument: About 54 percent of voters statewide said (in effect) that they don’t want to return incumbent Democrat U.S. Sen. Patty Murray to Washington, D.C. This led columnist Joel Connelly of http://www.seattlepi.com to conclude that our state is “in for its closest U.S. Senate race since 2000,” as Murray takes on popular Republican Dino Rossi (34 percent statewide Tuesday).
As for the 3rd Congressional District’s open race, not only did the lone Democrat (Denny Heck of Olympia) garner less than a third of the votes districtwide, but according to http://www.politico.com, Republican candidates received 10,000-plus more votes than Democrats. So Heck has his work cut out for him against Republican former legislator Jaime Herrera of Camas.
Which takes us to the most impressive individual effort of the primary. Herrera caught heavy flak from many GOP guns in what (despite the top two primary format) essentially became a Republican Party primary. But she fought hard to earn endorsements from the strongest Republican groups and campaigned ferociously to convincingly eliminate fellow Republicans David Castillo and David Hedrick (doubling the vote count of each) and two other hopefuls. This had to be especially aggravating for Castillo, the first to announce his candidacy back before Democrat Brian Baird announced he was retiring.