Manweller, Dent leading in primary
Two seats were up for grabs in the 13th Legislative District during Tuesday’s primary. Incumbents Rep. Matt Manweller, R-Ellensburg, and Rep. Tom Dent, R-Moses Lake, both vied to retain their seats in the state House. Though Sen. Judy Warnick, R-Moses Lake, was also up for election, she ran unopposed.
Though primary elections have a significantly lower turnout than general elections, they are generally considered indicative of how general elections will swing.
Manweller took an early lead as the night progressed and only lost a handful of percentage points as votes came in. By the time all votes had been tallied, Manweller led the race for his seat with under 64 percent of the vote.
Kittitas County gave Manweller’s Democratic opponent, Sylvia Hammond, her narrowest margin, but the county still went to Manweller by over 4 points. Grant County, which made up just under half of the district’s votes, went to Manweller by over 36 points.
Manweller has previously been challenged twice by Democrats before since first being elected to the state legislature in 2012. Of the two, Kaj Selmann did the best in the 2012 Primary with just over 30 percent of the vote. Despite losing by a wide margin, Hammond outperformed previous Democrats running in this district, earning over 36 percent of the vote.
Manweller has been dogged by allegations of sexual misconduct, which the legislator has repeatedly denied. Though this year’s primary drew almost 1,300 fewer voters than Manweller’s last head-to-head election in 2016, Manweller bore an even bigger dip in voters, with almost 2,200 fewer voters choosing Manweller compared to two years ago.
Dent led the race for the seat he currently holds by the widest margin of any of the two-term legislator’s previous elections, with under 71 percent of the vote. Dent has only been challenged once for his seat, when he first ran in 2014. Dent won that election with under 65 percent of the vote. Dent also earned about 700 more votes than his last head-to-head in 2014.