Quiring holds her lead

It’s still a week from final certification of the 2018 General Election results, but in all but one race of local importance, the winners are decided. Based on the last count of ballots before press deadline, every major race involving local voters was decided except for that of Clark County Council Chair. 

In the county, nearly 196,000 ballots were counted for a voter turnout of more than 69 percent according to unofficial results.

The latest vote count had current Clark County Councilor Eileen Quiring in the lead to take on the at-large council chair position. The current Republican District 4 representative for the county had 1,029 votes over her competitor, Democrat Eric Holt, holding a narrow lead of about 50.3 percent. Although the election results won’t be verified until later this month, all ballots have been counted. 

But as of press time, neither candidate had conceded or declared victory, even though the slim lead Quiring has over Holt is enough to avoid a state-required mandatory recount.

Following the first few sets of results, Holt has been focused on getting ballots with issues counted — in a Nov. 14 Facebook post he said more than 2,500 weren’t counted due to signature errors. He has stressed a desire not to concede until all votes were accounted for.

Other races had similar results as were anticipated in previous counts. U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Battle Ground, secured re-election, gaining 52.7 percent of the districtwide vote over challenger Democrat Carolyn Long. Long did manage to take Clark County with 51.1 percent countywide.

One newcomer and one incumbent will join whoever wins county council chair.

Democrat Temple Lentz maintained a sizeable lead over current District 1 councilor Jeanne Stewart, a Republican. Councilor Julie Olson has also defeated challenger and fellow Republican Elisabeth Veneman to retain her District 2 seat.