PORT ANGELES — Republican Jim McEntire led Democrat Linda Barnfather 4,370 votes to 3,357 votes Tuesday night after the first — and biggest — count of primary election ballots for the position of Sequim-area District No. 1 Clallam County commissioner.
McEntire and Barnfather automatically move on to the Nov. 8 general election regardless of the outcome, which has McEntire gaining 56.55 percent of the votes to Barnfather’s 43.45 percent as of Tuesday night.
But the primary was still an important indication of how voters view their campaigns at this stage in the electoral process, they said Tuesday.
“I am gratified and humbled by this result, and I am going to keep working hard at meeting voters, meeting people and earning their votes from now until Nov. 8,” said McEntire, 61.
Barnfather, 48, said she “expected” the results.
“We just knew it was actually going to be pretty competitive,” she said.
The winner of the general election will begin receiving a salary of $63,348 upon taking office in January.
The next count of primary election votes will be Friday by 4:30 p.m., Auditor Patty Rosand said. The election will be certified Aug. 31.
Results of Tuesday’s count are available on cmg-northwest2.go-vip.net/peninsuladailynews, as they will be Friday.
Voting for the primary was confined to Sequim-area District No. 1, where incumbent Democrat and current 24th District state Rep. Steve Tharinger is not running for re-election.
Four Auditor’s Office employees Tuesday processed 7,787 ballot out of 19,092 mailed July 27 only to Sequim District No. 1 voters, upping the percentage of those who voted to 40.8 percent.
The number of total ballots processed is different than the total cast for both candidates because of voters who did not cast votes in the commissioners’ race, county elections supervisor Shoona Radon said.
The district has 42 percent of the county’s 45,944 registered voters, but the all-mail-ballot general election will be countywide.
Despite the limited geographic scope of primary election voting, the results still mattered to Barnfather, a legislative assistant to 24th District state Rep. Kevin Van De Wege of Sequim, and McEntire, a retired Coast Guard captain and current Port of Port Angeles commissioner.
“It’s a very important indication of people who know me best in my district,” McEntire said.
“I take that as a very encouraging thing.”
Barnfather expects the race to become “even more competitive as we move to Port Angeles,” she said.
The primary, she added, “sets us up for more of the work I need to do.”
The Auditor’s Office received 524 ballots Tuesday that boosted the total processed.
Rosand said she expects “maybe 500 more” ballots to be received Wednesday from voters who dropped their ballots in the mail Tuesday.
“Some people like to vote on Election Day,” Rosand said, adding that no more ballots remain from Tuesday’s batch.
“Everything we’ve gotten has been counted,” she said Tuesday.
She said she has a standard answer on what it takes to change an outcome from Election Night to when ballots are next counted.
“If the difference between two candidates is more than half of a percent, it’s probably going to stay that percentage,” Rosand said.
Under state law, all election races at the county government level and above have primaries, even if just one candidate is running.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.