GOP right, tax resistance dominate Cowlitz County's general election vote

Longview police levy passing; mental health tax failing; MGP has slight lead in race for Congress due to strong Clark County support

The first count of election returns Tuesday night proved again just how conservative Cowlitz County has become — and, with one notable exception, how little stomach local voters here have for any whiff of tax increases.

Meanwhile, the race for Southwest Washington’s congressional seat is, as forecast, shaping up as another cliffhanger.

Thousands of ballots are left to count, but the county trend is clear. In race after race — local, state or federal — Cowlitz voters checked candidates with an “R” by their names.

Conservative Republicans Steve Ferrell and Steve Rader are easily skating to victory in races for two Cowlitz County commissioner seats.

Rader, of Kalama, had 55.48% of the vote in the contest with Kalama Mayor Steve Reuter, a moderate Republican. Ferrell, a Longview Fibre Co. retiree, was getting nearly 60% of the vote, easily outdistancing Longview Democrat Amy Norquist, a former entrepreneur, grant writer and environmentalist.

Wins by Ferrell and Rader will push the board of commissioners even further rightward. Ferrell is a member of the GOP’s conservative “4-C” group, and he and Rader share much of libertarian thinking of outgoing commissioner Arne Mortensen.

Ferrell will replace Dennis Weber, a moderate Republican who often was at odds with Mortensen and commissioner Rick Dahl over matters such as supporting Drug Court and the county’s error-filled medical freedom resolution. Rader will replace Mortensen, whose endorsement he received.

An advisory vote to re-establish the county’s mental health tax went down with a resounding 58.11% “no” vote. The 0.01% sales tax — a penny on a $10 purchase — has paid for Cowlitz Drug Court, mental health and drug treatment of jail inmates and the sheriff’s office behavioral health unit.

It will be up to the new board of county commissioners to figure out how to pay for these programs. The state mandates drug and mental health treatment. Drug Court has been shown to save taxpayer money by reducing criminal recidivism, despite doubters among local right wingers. The current board of commissioners declined to renew the tax last spring and put it up to an advisory vote instead.

Kelso’ proposed sales tax boost of 0.2% was going down, getting only 41% approval. It would have paid for residential street repairs.

Longview’s proposal police sales tax — 0.1% — was an exception to the no new taxes trend. It had a 56.2% yes vote in Tuesday’s returns and seems destined to pass. If it does, Longview Police Chief Robert Huhta plans to use the $500,000 it will raise annually to hire three patrol officers for the swing shift, the agency’s busiest.

Longview is not as conservative as the rest of the county, and the Longview City Council had unanimously supported the police levy.

Even veteran Democrats struggled here. U.S. Sen. Marie Cantwell got only 43% of the Cowlitz vote. Cantwell had token opposition and won about 67% of the vote statewide.

Vice President Kamala Harris got only 39.2% of the Cowlitz votes counted Tuesday in the race for president, and fellow Democrat Bob Ferguson got only 39% in the race for governor.

However, Ferguson was leading Republican Dave Reichert, winning 56% of the statewide vote Tuesday night. Harris had 58% of the statewide vote in her race against former President Donald Trump.

The race for Southwest Washington’s congressional seat was close, as predicted. Incumbent Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez had 51.78% of the vote in the race for 3rd District representative. She was leading Republican challenger, Trump-endorsed Joe Kent, largely on the strength of the 56% share of the vote she won in Clark County, which has by far the lion’s share of the district electorate.

MGP also is winning Pacific County, but Cowlitz County gave about 55% of its vote to Kent. The race is a rematch of their 2022 contest, won by MGP by fewer than 3,000 votes. This one likely won‘t be decided for days, but the pattern is close to that of the election of two years ago.

In race for 19th District Legislative seats, the three Republican incumbents were sliding to easy wins. State Sen. Jeff Wilson (Longview) and state Reps. Joel McEntire (Cathlamet) and Jim Walsh (Aberdeen) were winning with about 60% of the vote in their respective races against Democrats Andi Day (Seaview), Terry Carlson (Longview) and Mike Coverdale (Westport).

However, three major statewide initiatives that Walsh orchestrated are going under. And even the Cowlitz vote, so ardently Republican when it came to candidates, did not give Walsh any convincing support for the ballot measures.

Initiative 2109, which would have repealed the state capital gains tax on the wealthy, suffered a resounding defeat, with 63.2% of the statewide vote opposed. Even in Cowlitz County, 54.62% of the voters said no, which was a vote to retain the tax.

Only a handful of people here pay the tax, which pays for early childhood education and school construction. So the measure was criticized as a tax break for the Puget Sound rich at the expense of school children.

Walsh-supported Initiative 2117, which would have repealed the state’s landmark Climate Commitment Act, also went down in flames, getting a 61.7% statewide “no” vote. It was only narrowly passing in Cowlitz County, where it had 50.8% “yes” vote. The legislation charges large emitters a fee for greenhouse gas emissions that exceed a cap, and the money is earmarked for transportation and other efforts to combat climate change.

Initiative 2124, which would have allowed workers to opt-out of the state’s insurance plan for long-term care, also was losing, with a 55.5% no vote. The vote in Cowlitz County was about split.

Voter rejection of these measures is a big defeat for Walsh, who had championed them with the financial backing of Redmond hedge fund manager and multimillionaire Brian Heywood.

I will have more election analysis and updates on Wednesday.