Expectation-management in the 14th LD

Plus Upthegrove pulls close in Lands Commissioner race and more primary takeaways

Before this week’s primary, Democrats were aggressively poor-mouthing their short-term chances in the newly redrawn 14th Legislative District in the Yakima Valley. The argument: The district’s voting patterns indicated Democrats might do very poorly in a low-turnout primary election but still prevail in November when the draw of the presidential race brings in more voters. 

The first part of that is exactly what happened. Democrat Maria Beltran, who formerly worked for the House Democratic Campaign Committee had less than 42 percent of the vote as of Thursday’s count, compared to more than 58 percent for veteran incumbent Sen. Curtis King, R-Yakima.¹ That’s despite an eye-popping pre-primary campaign on her behalf.