Despite low turnout and crowded fields, November races for county commissioner appear set

Congresswoman Marie Glusenkamp Perez runs strong across the region in Tuesday's primary election

This story has been updated with comments from the two apparent winners of the races for two county commissioner seats.

Amy Norquist, Steve Ferrell, Steve Rader and Mike Reuter appear headed for general election showdowns in two races for county commissioner after they jumped to big leads in the first Cowlitz County primary election ballot count Tuesday night.

In another marquee race, incumbent Congresswoman Marie Glusenkamp Perez had a slight lead over Trump-endorsed Joe Kent, leading with 43.25% to Kent’s 42.57% in Cowlitz County.

Districtwide, MGP was leading Kent, getting just short or 47% of the vote to Kent’s 38.2%. The results eliminated Camas Republican Leslie Lewallen, who polled 12.43 %. Tuesday’s results thus set up a rematch of the 2022 race, which MGP won by less than 1%. Lewallen had been pitched as a less extreme Republican alternative to Kent.

Norquist, a Longview Democrat, won a whopping 43% of the vote cast in the race for County Commissioner District 2, which represents the Longview area. Ferrell, a member of the conservative Republican 4-Cs group, claimed second place with 26.34% of the vote and appears poised to face Norquist in the November general election.

Four other candidates for that seat — Rayleen Aguirre (10.29%), Justin Brown (9.70%), Hal Palmer (8.2%) and Jo Zichterman (1.83%) — appear to have been eliminated.

“I’m pretty excited,” said Norquist, 61.

She attributed her strong showing to grassroots campaigning.

“We worked hard to talk to as many people as we could. Right up to the last minute we were knocking on doors,” conveying a message she believes resonated with voters: “Government can be a force for good and that good government can help everyone in the county. And we need to get past the grievances.”

“And I had a lot of support from Republicans who have known me since I was born,” said Norquist, whose late father, Stanley Norquist, was a long-time doctor in Longview.

In the three-way race for Commissioner District 1, how held by Arne Mortensen, Mortensen-endorsed Republican Steve Rader of Kalama captured 40.36 % of the vote, and Kalama Mayor Mike Reuter won 31.8% .

A third candidate, Kelso city councilman Keenan Harvey, won 25.07 %. The district includes Kelso, Kalama, Woodland and south county areas.

Rader said before returns rolled in had had no way to gauge how well he would do. “We took a multifaceted approach, visiting neighborhoods, knocking on doors, passing out literature, using every social media platform we could find. As I talked with people my message was accepted” by voters, Rader said.

He said he does not believe Mortensen’s endorsement made a big difference in the results, saying the support of the controversial libertarian, two-term commissioner cut both ways.

Rader, 48, owns a financial services firm and a construction company.

“I am really not a guy who is going to play partisan politics. If someone has a good idea and it makes sense, I don’t care who presents it. I am a commonsense and level-headed individual and not necessarily into doing things just because it is line with the party I am affiliated with.”

The Cowlitz Elections Office had counted 16,711 ballots as of Tuesday night, but the last-day crush of balloting means at least another 6,000 or so remain to be counted, based Washington Secretary of State figures. The next count will be released by 7 p.m. Wednesday.

Nevertheless, Norquist, Ferrell and Rader have such large leads that they are unlikely to lose them as counting progresses. However, Harvey could still be within striking distance of Reuter for the No. 2 spot in the race for Commissioner District 1.

The “top two” primary determines which two candidates square off in the general election.

Although Norquist and Rader appear to have won the primary comfortably, Tuesday’s count is only a partial barometer for what’s ahead in November. This is because in the primary, only voters in each individual commissioner district cast ballots in these races. The November commissioner election is countywide, mixing the very conservative Woodland area with the more Democratic-leaning Longview area, for example.

Norquist, former regional director for Mother Jones magazine and currently development director for Lower Columbia School Gardens, would give Democrats their first seat on the three-member board of county commissioners in eight years (a previous version of this story erred in saing it was two years). The board is now dominated by conservatives Mortensen and Rick Dahl. Dahl is not up for re-election.

Despite a last day surge in balloting, only about one third of Cowlitz County’s registered voters submitted ballots.

According to the Secretary of State’s Office, just 30.59% of the county’s 73,648 registered voters returned ballots despite a long list of marquee local and statewide races on the ballot, including for the two county commissioner seats, governor and Southwest Washington’s congressional seat.

The turnout may end up being the lowest for a presidential election year since at least 2008. The previous low was 32.36% in 2016, but late-arriving ballots could push this year’s tally above that.

Turnout was poor statewide, hitting only 26.72% as of Tuesday evening, according to the Secretary of State.

Turnout among young voters, which typically lags below those of older age groups, was particularly poor. In Cowlitz Country turnout was 11.3% for registered 18-24 year olds and 12.14 % for the 25-to-34 year old bracket. State averages were about the same.

The low turnout reversed a big surge in primary balloting in the 2020 presidential election year, when it hit 55.6% in Cowlitz County

In other results, the 19th District Republicans incumbents easily outpolled Democratic challengers, but they will face off again in November. State Sen. Jeff Wilson of Longview got 56.4 % of the Cowlitz vote and 59% of the districtwide tally. State Reps. Jim Walsh and Joel McIntire polled 58.4% and 57% districtwide. The 19th District represents Longview, west Cowlitz County, Wahkiakum and Pacific counties and parts of Grays Harbor and Lewis counties.

Two Republican legislators in the 20th District — Reps. Ed Orcutt of Kalama and state Sen. John Braun of Centralia — were unchallenged. The third 20th District legislator, state Rep. Peter Abarno Centralia, easily defeated a Democratic challenger. The 20th District includes Kelso and eastern and southern Cowlitz County.

For full Cowlitz County results, see https://results.vote.wa.gov/results/20240806/cowlitz/

For statewide results, see https://results.vote.wa.gov/results/20240806/

Look for more election follow-ups on Wednesday.