6th district House seat still too close to call
It appears that incumbent GOP Rep. John Serben [R-Mead] might not have been picked off by the coattails of Maria Cantwell and Chris Marr after all. He had been losing by a modest margin on election night and has been behind through each new count, but has crept closer and closer to the lead of presumed Democratic victor Don Barlow. The current numbers show Barlow's lead down to 327 votes, a 50.32% to 49.68% lead. Spokane County claims to have about 3500 votes remaining, and since not all of them are going to be from the 6th district it looks like Barlow will hold on. However, that lead may well be subject to a state-mandated machine recount, if the end margin between the candidates is 0.5% or less. As we all should have learned by now, however, Serben could easily request and finance a recount of his own, though by this time I don't quite see the point of doing so. Barlow will be hard-pressed to hold that seat in two years, as-is.
posted by TMW @ 7:38 AM
1 Comments:
The 6th forms a C around downtown Spokane and comprises some urban and rural areas with mostly suburban areas. On the whole it's moderately-conservative, being Jim West's old district and all, but has given moderate Democrats a chance in recent years. I'm not totally sure how the district will respond to having a couple Democratic legislators, since they haven't had one in forever. Marr won by enough that it's pretty clear he was not just the beneficiary of a good year, but Barlow for sure will have to be an amazing rep to win another term. The 6th has most of the Republican parts of the city of Spokane in it, so they won't have any trouble finding challengers.
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