After more ballots from Tuesday’s election were counted Wednesday, results showed Republican challenger Lynda Wilson widening her lead over Democratic incumbent Rep. Monica Stonier in the 17th Legislative District.
Wilson has captured 51.2 percent of the votes to Stonier’s 48.7 percent.
The margin between Clark County commissioner candidates Craig Pridemore, a Democrat, and Jeanne Stewart, a Republican, lessened. Pridemore has captured 50.5 percent of the votes so far to Stewart’s 49.3 percent.
The home rule charter maintained its healthy lead Wednesday. The pro-charter camp had 54.75 percent of the vote, while 45.25 percent of voters were opposed.
There are still an estimated 32,000 ballots left to be counted, according to election officials.
Stonier said Wednesday night that she hopes the gap between her and challenger Wilson narrows.
“There are some precincts where I believe, when I look at the numbers and I look at the map, that we still have favorable votes. We’ll see if folks got their ballots in,” Stonier said. “You never want it to draw out, but we’ve been in a recount situation before, so we’ll see if we get close enough to have that next stage of the election.”
Stonier won her first term in the statehouse by 140 votes.
Wilson said she was pleased that her lead was growing, adding that it “should be clear where the election stands by tomorrow.”
In the rest of the local legislative races, state House incumbents enjoyed healthy leads over their challengers.
Statewide, proponents who were pushing for a measure to expand background checks on gun sales were handed a big win.
The opposing measure, Initiative 591, failed.
The measure to reduce class sizes, Initiative 1351, continued to be too close to call.
Despite California billionaire Tom Steyer funneling millions of dollars into Washington legislative races, it appeared Republicans would keep control of the Senate and possibly narrow the edge Democrats have in the House.
Republican control of the Senate means Gov. Jay Inslee will likely have a harder time passing some of his ambitious climate-related legislation. With a split Legislature, “compromise will have to be a part of our approach in Olympia,” he said in a statement.
Inslee said he would be calling legislative leaders soon to talk about how to work across the aisle “on education, jobs, transportation, protecting our most vulnerable, and protecting our environment.”
