This swing district has the most expensive WA state House race. Early results are in
It's the most expensive state House race in Washington.
Republican Jesse Young and Democrat Adison Richards are vying for the open seat to represent the 26th Legislative District in Olympia.
Early results Tuesday night showed Richards in the lead with 33,512 votes (52 percent). Young had 30,549 votes (48 percent). More results are expected to drop Nov. 6.
The 26th District includes Gig Harbor, the Key Peninsula and stretches into Kitsap County, up to Bremerton.
Young previously held the seat, then left to run for state Senate in 2022. He lost that race to incumbent Sen. Emily Randall (D-Bremerton). Meanwhile, Richards and Republican Spencer Hutchins ran against each other for the House seat in 2022. Voters elected Hutchins, who announced earlier this year that he wouldn't seek reelection .
That left the seat open, and Young decided to run against Richards for his old seat.
The News Tribune was not able to immediately reach Young for comment Tuesday night.
Richards told The News Tribune that roughly half the ballots in the race have been counted.
"I can tell you that I was up 1,100 votes on election night two years ago, and so being up 3,000 right now feels really great," he said.
He said his priorities are to "lower costs, improve public safety, and expand opportunities, especially" in career and technical education.
"I'm just a kid from Purdy who wants to do my best to serve my home, and I'm just so grateful for the confidence people have show in me with these results," he said.
State Public Disclosure Commission records show Richards raised $568,555 this election. Young raised $279,744.
"This is one of the biggest battle grounds in Washington state," New Direction PAC spokesperson Jared Leopold told The News Tribune last month. The political action committee said it spent $425,000 on an ad campaign targeting Young's 2019 bill to abolish abortion in Washington state.
Leopold called the race "an opportunity for Democrats to pick up a seat that Republicans have held for a while."
Richards, who has worked as an attorney for Kitsap Legal Services and for the Northwest Justice Project, grew up in the Gig Harbor area and went to Peninsula High School.
"I'll fight for common-sense solutions to lower child and health care costs, protect rural areas while building housing, fund more police officers, expand career and tech education, protect reproductive freedom, and defend our democracy," he wrote in the voters' pamphlet.
Young, who grew up in Tacoma, has worked as a software engineer and business owner, according to the voters' pamphlet.
"Whether protecting your families from over-bearing government, fighting inflation, high taxes, and corporate interests, or applying my career experience to secure our children's future, I'll always work hard to serve you," part of his statement said.
Richards won the Aug. 6 primary with 25,096 votes (49.6 percent). Young got 17,137 votes (33.87 percent). Republican Jim Henderson took 8,326 votes (16.45 percent). The top two vote-getters advanced to the general election.
