Yakima’s 14th District Legislative Candidates Hold Comfortable Leads

Washington state has a total of 49 state Senate seats and 26 of them are up for re-election this year.  Washington’s senators hold staggered, four-year terms with about half of the Senate scheduled for election every two years.

Republicans hold a  one-seat majority against the Democrats in the Washington State Senate, which is considered by ballotpedia to be one of 20 battleground chambers.

Pre-election pundits were indicating that either party could end up in control.  As the votes roll in, the Republican incumbent in District 17, Don Benton from the Vancouver area, is not running for re-election, giving Democrats a better chance of taking that seat.  Meanwhile Democrat Mark Mullett currently holds District 5, near Issaquah, which is a historically Republican-leaning district.  In all, Republicans and Democrats will face off in 14 contested districts.

In Yakima County, 14^th District Sen. Curtis King defeated Amanda Richards, his independent Republican challenger, 65.7 percent to 33.6 percent, so any changes to the Senate make up won’t fall at the feet of the 14^th District.

Ballotpedia identified Senate District 28 as a "race to watch" because the district is closely divided. Two Republicans competed in the primary to unseat the Democratic incumbent. There are 35 seats where there is only one major party candidate running. Fourteen incumbent representatives are not running for re-election in 2016, seven Democrats and seven Republicans.

All 98 seats in the Washington House of Representatives are up for election in 2016. Democrats seek to defend their two-seat majority against the Republicans and again, realistically, either party could end up in control of the chamber. In the 14^th District, both incumbents, Norm Johnson (68.9 percent) and Gina McCabe (70.21 percent), won re-election easily.