Most primary races unchanged as more votes counted
Grant County Auditor’s Office employees Aleanah Lopez, left, and Robin Rutty, right, count ballots in the November 2023 election. Lopez said the turnout for the Aug. 6 primary is lower than during the last presidential election year, but each election cycle is unique.
FILE PHOTO
EPHRATA — Most primary election races in Grant and Adams counties remain unchanged after additional votes were counted during the week.
The exception was the primary race in Grant County for the Fourth District in the U.S. House; incumbent Dan Newhouse was leading after the initial count, but lost that lead to challenger Jerrod Sessler.
In updated results, Sessler has 2,167 votes to 2,066 in Grant County. Sessler maintained his lead over Newhouse in Adams County, receiving 220 votes to 154 for Newhouse. Sessler is leading districtwide in the eight-person field, with 32,364 votes to 24,535 for Newhouse. The two will advance to the general election in November.
In the Fifth District, which includes most of Adams County, Republican Michael Baumgartner and Democrat Carmela Conroy continue to lead in a race that drew 11 candidates.
Baumgartner has a commanding lead in Adams County with 356 votes; Conroy has 85 votes. She trails Republican Jacquelin Maycumber, who received 157 votes, in the county. Districtwide, Baumgarnter has 40,769 votes to Conroy’s 28,354.
Each of the four county commission races, two in each county, featured two candidates, who both will advance to the general election. Only voters in the district represented by the candidates voted in the primary; all county residents will vote in those races in November.
In Grant County, Kevin Burgess maintains a lead over Amador Castro in the race for Commission District 1. Burgess has 1,347 votes to 790 for Castro. A third candidate, Dave Bren, withdrew before the primary but after the deadline to be removed from the ballot had passed. Bren has 531 votes.
Incumbent Rob Jones is leading challenger David Henderson in Commission District 2. Jones had 1,383 votes to 864 for Henderson.
Incumbent Adams County Commissioner Dan Blankenship is also maintaining a lead over his challenger, David Lobe, in the District 1 race. Blankenship had 577 votes to 321 for Lobe.
Incumbent Jay Weise is leading challenger Hank Rivard in the District 2 race. Weise has 107 votes to 71 for Rivard.
Grant and Adams counties are following the state preference in the race for governor, with Republican Dave Reichert and Democrat Bob Ferguson receiving the most votes. Reichert has 748 votes in Adams County to 213 for Ferguson, barely edging out Republican Semi Bird, who has 211. In Grant County Reichert has 3,691 votes to 1,535 for Ferguson.
With ballots still being counted, voter turnout was about 16.3% in Grant County and 18.4% in Adams County. Aleanah Lopez, certified election administrator for Grant County, said there didn’t seem to be as much interest in 2024 as there was in 2020, when about 51.8% of registered voters cast ballots in the primary.
“It just varies with each election,” Lopez said.