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There wasn’t even a bronze medal for third place in this contest.
A former Spokane Valley mayor will remain on the City Council for the time being, as her bid for a 4th District representative seat in the state House of Representatives failed Tuesday in a distant third-place finish.
Under the new top-two primary system only the duo with most votes advance to the general election. Republican challenger Matt Shea earned just over 39 percent in the five-candidate heat, with Democrat Tim Hattenburg close behind with nearly 36 percent.
It was the opinion of many that the primary – which doesn’t factor party affiliation – could favor both Shea, who earned 7,577 votes as of Tuesday night, and Wilhite, another Republican. But Wilhite’s 3,927 votes simply were not enough to carry her forward.
Ray Deonier, another Republican, fared far worse with only 555 votes for less than 3 percent of the vote. He did even worse than Anthony Honorof, a Democratic choice whose campaign was virtually nonexistent. All were trying for Lynn Schindler’s Position 2 seat in the House; Schindler has retired from politics.
For her part, Wilhite puts the loss in perspective.
“I need to get back to the business of the City Council,” she said.
Wilhite is up for re-election next year. She has yet to decide if she will run again for council.
Hattenburg – who sits on the Spokane Valley Library District board of trustees and is a former Central Valley teacher – once ran a close race against 4th District Sen. Bob McCaslin. His strong showing – he had 7,089 votes, enough to be in striking distance of Mead resident Shea – shouldn’t be easily dismissed, said Wilhite’s husband, Rick.
“He got all the Democrats,” he said. “I figured he would be right in there.”
“With three Republicans, the one I really needed to beat was Matt,” Diana Wilhite said.
Republicans maintained leads in the two other 4th District contents. McCaslin had a 3,000-vote lead over Judi Owens for the state Senate job, while Rep. Larry Crouse fended off Linda Thompson by about 2,000 votes. All move forward to the general election, as there were no other candidates in the races.
Democrats also figured large in two races for county commissioner. Brian Sayrs, a Democrat and member of the Liberty Lake City Council, had 10,981 votes Tuesday to incumbent Mark Richard’s 11,496, the difference of about 2 percent. Incumbent Republican Todd Mielke also had a close race with challenger Kim Thorburn, former director of the Spokane Regional Health District. Thorburn had 11,962 votes to Mielke’s 12,070.
Voting was only done in both commissioners’ own districts this time around. The races go countywide Nov. 4. Both candidates in each district will advance to the general election since they were the only ones running.
In other action, Spokane Valley residents and Constitution Party candidates Randall Yearout and Randall Peck were eliminated from their bids for Congress and lieutenant governor, respective. Incumbent Republican Cathy McMorris Rodgers had more votes than all her challengers combined in the 5th District congressional race with 34,877 votes Tuesday night.
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By
Mike Huffman
