Harger: 6 things I’m watching on election night, starting with a $250K check that would have been blocked 2 weeks ago

I got back from Las Vegas yesterday after four days with my son’s youth baseball team. It was a 20-minute drive each way between the hotel and the ball field, and I passed more political signs than I could count.

Washington, we need to get our act together. Our yard signs are entirely too polite.

The signs in Nevada were huge, and they didn’t hold back. They questioned motives. They went after character; a few flat-out called people names (I’m looking at you, “Melanie Felony”). We don’t see that kind of thing very often around here.

And not one of them listed a party. You got the name, maybe a line about the candidate, and that was it. You couldn’t tell a Republican from a Democrat.

But now I’m back in Washington, and there’s serious business to attend to. Drop boxes close at 8 p.m. sharp, and I’ll be on the air at KIRO Newsradio and YouTube Live from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. breaking it all down. These are the six things I’m watching for.

1. A $250,000 check in the Washington Supreme Court races

Last week, I told you the state Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) had stopped enforcing the $7,500 cap on what one donor can give a PAC in the final three weeks before an election. I warned that the Supreme Court races could get a lot more expensive.

It took four days.

On Oct. 27, the SEIU 775 Quality Care Committee wrote a $250,000 check to Beware the Attack on Our Courts, an outside group going after Supreme Court candidate Sean O’Donnell. More on that race below. Under the old rule, that check would have topped out at $7,500. Counting a $500,000 check to the campaign against I-001 and I-638 the day before the vote, SEIU groups have put just over $1 million into Washington’s election since Oct. 21.

SEIU wasn’t alone. Since the PDC’s vote, donors have written more than $3 million in checks bigger than $7,500, according to PDC records.

The single biggest donor is Brian Heywood of Let’s Go Washington, at $350,000. Most of it went to his own group. Another $50,000 went to Concerned Taxpayers of Washington State, the conservative PAC that backed Dave Larson and David Stevens in the Supreme Court primary.

Last week, Heywood warned that lifting the cap hands progressives an edge in the court races. Since the vote, Beware the Attack on Our Courts has taken $375,000 in checks over the old limit. Concerned Taxpayers has taken $117,500.

The legislative races are getting it too. The landlords’ Rental Housing Association PAC took $280,000 in two checks. The Democratic caucus PACs took $185,000. The business-backed Jobs PAC got a single $100,000 check.

The initiative campaigns were never capped. They can take checks of any size, and they did. The campaign to repeal the income tax on millionaires pulled in $570,000 in big checks over the same stretch. The campaign against the girls’ sports and parental rights initiatives took $433,000.

Unions, landlords, business groups, and a Redmond investor all found their checkbooks. You can see who’s funding any campaign on the PDC’s website.

2. Let’s Go Washington initiatives and the income tax on millionaires

I’ve voted in Washington for 33 years. Suppose you’d told me at the start of this cycle that Initiative 645, the repeal of the income tax, would be polling badly underwater. And suppose you’d told me I-638 on girls’ sports and I-001 on parental rights were holding up reasonably well. I wouldn’t have believed you.

This has been an anti-income-tax state for as long as I’ve been voting. Voters turned down an income tax as recently as 2010. Yet a DHM Research poll this fall had 57% of voters keeping the tax and 35% repealing it.

All three initiatives, explained here by KIRO 7, share the ballot with the Supreme Court races as the only statewide contests every Washington voter sees. Everybody who voted has weighed in. If those poll numbers hold, it’s a sign this state may be changing its mind, and it’s the clearest read in years on where the electorate is heading.

3. Washington Supreme Court races: O’Donnell, Larson, and Stevens

The other contests on every ballot are the ones too many voters skip.

Remember those Nevada signs with no party on them? Washington’s Supreme Court races are officially nonpartisan too. This year, party labels are all anybody wants to talk about. The parties have been endorsing candidates in mailers and online ads, which is new.

I’d give King County Superior Court Judge Sean O’Donnell the best shot, and he’s in the nastiest race on the ballot. He’s running for the open Position 4 seat against Appeals Court Judge Ian Birk. Birk has seven of the nine sitting justices and a long list of unions and Democrats behind him. In campaign emails, he went after O’Donnell for landing on the state Republican Party’s recommended slate and accused him of a partisan agenda. The SEIU-funded mailers went further and pinned the MAGA label on him, about 300,000 pieces of it.

That drew blowback. A letter from 62 current and former judges called Birk’s accusations false, and The Seattle Times editorial board told voters not to reward him for it. O’Donnell said Google pulled the group’s ads, while Meta kept running them. His backers include former Democratic Governors Gary Locke and Chris Gregoire.

Dave Larson, a former Federal Way Municipal Court judge, may have a shot at unseating Justice Theo Angelis in Position 5. So may Mason County Superior Court Judge David Stevens, running against King County Superior Court Judge Jaime Hawk for the open Position 3 seat. I sat down with Stevens for my candidate interview series. With these court races, you never can tell.

4. WA-3: Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, John Braun, and the 4 p.m. tell

We’ll start getting a feel for this one around 4 p.m. Seattle time, as East Coast results roll in. If a blue wave is forming, we’ll see it. We’ll also find out whether this year’s polling was any good, and it may not have been.

If there’s no wave, Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is in real trouble. If the wave is big, Republican John Braun has his work cut out for him. Braun is a far more traditional Republican than Joe Kent, the man she beat twice, and he presumably has a broader base. That makes this the real test of whether she can hold southwest Washington.

When Washington counties post election night results

A little insider knowledge from a guy who’s covered a lot of these. Each county in Washington posts one batch of results on election night. Most land between about 8:10 and 8:45 p.m. A few smaller counties run late, but every county has posted before 9. After that, nothing new comes in until the next day.

Also keep in mind which way the later ballots lean. In Seattle and King County, ballots counted later in the week tend to pull progressive. In swing districts outside King County, late ballots have often broken the other way. In 2020, Democrats led on election night in Clark County’s 17th Legislative District and lost that lead as late ballots came in. An election night lead out there isn’t safe.

5. Supermajority math in Olympia: the 17th, 18th, and 26th districts

Democrats hold the state House 59 to 39 and the Senate 30 to 19. A two-thirds supermajority takes 66 House seats, about seven more, and 33 in the Senate, three more. Two-thirds is enough to override a governor’s veto and send constitutional amendments to voters without help from the other side of the aisle.

The House is the likelier target. Democratic challengers outpolled both Republican incumbents in Clark County’s 17th and 18th districts in the August primary. In the open 26th District seat around Gig Harbor and Port Orchard, two Democrats combined for about 53%. The 12th District, running from Wenatchee into the Snoqualmie Valley, split almost 50-50.

The Northwest Progressive Institute, a progressive group campaigning against I-645, projects about eight pickups. That would leave Democrats one seat over the line.

In the Senate, watch the 35th, where Republican Sen. Drew MacEwen edged Democrat Carolina Mejia by about two points in the primary.

Winning both chambers is a long shot. If a blue tsunami shows up, though, anything could be on the table.

6. What tonight sets up for 2028 in Washington

Zoom out, and the national results start setting up 2028. Two years ago, voters frustrated with the economy under President Biden turned his party out, with Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket. Donald Trump promised something different. Two years later, the economy is still in a tough spot. He hasn’t turned it around yet, and the question is whether he can in the next two.

Maybe this is the cycle that teaches politicians their economic promises have to come with results. In 2028, every statewide office in Washington is up, from governor to attorney general, plus a U.S. Senate seat. That race starts Wednesday.

Tune in tonight at 7 on KIRO Newsradio, and I’ll be back Wednesday morning on Seattle’s Morning News. Bring coffee.

Charlie Harger is the host of “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio. You can read more of his stories and commentaries here. Follow Charlie on X and email him here. 

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