In the 3rd Congressional District in Washington, Democratic candidate Marie Gluesenkamp Perez has seen her win affirmed by the recount procedures requested by the Trump-backed Republican candidate she defeated, Joe Kent.
Kent’s campaign covered the nearly $50,000 for the recount, which was set to feature a recount by machine of every vote cast in the race. In individual counties, changes to reported vote totals were either non-existent or in the single digits, although Kent lost by thousands of votes out of hundreds of thousands. One county, Cowlitz, saw a single vote added to each candidate’s total. Originally, his losing margin was less than a percentage point but above the level that would lead under state rules to an automatic recount. Besides defeating a candidate Trump supported, Gluesenkamp Perez also flipped the seat from Republican control. Its outgoing occupant, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R), was among the ten House Republicans who voted for Trump’s impeachment after the Capitol riot, drawing the now former president’s anger and a challenger he supported.
Other Republicans challenging incumbents who supported Trump’s impeachment saw varying degrees of success. In Wyoming, Liz Cheney will soon be replaced by Harriet Hageman, who won the primary, but John Gibbs, who defeated Peter Meijer in a GOP Congressional primary in Michigan, later lost to the Democratic candidate in the general election. Democrats seeing election results sometimes better than expected in this year’s midterms, including House candidate-turned-recently inaugurated incumbent Mary Peltola holding the lone House seat in Alaska, wasn’t enough to keep Democrats from slipping into the minority in the House, in which partisan control will formally change early next month.
One county official involved in conducting the recount noted that some of what it covers is also covered by what authorities normally do after elections. “We didn’t expect anything to change because we do that process as part of our reconciliation for certification,” Tom Stanton, who serves as chief deputy auditor for Lewis County, noted this week. That county finalized its portion of the recount last Friday, finding no changes to the vote totals there. Most of the recount process was complete at that point, with just one county — in which there was no indication the totals would shift by thousands — left. Elsewhere in the country, Arizona Republican candidates who lost in this year’s midterm elections are continuing to pursue legal challenges, even as one — candidate for attorney general Abe Hamadeh — already has his race going to a recount because of the close margin. An Arizona federal judge recently dismissed a case filed by Mark Finchem, who lost in a campaign for Secretary of State.
