Reed gains ground in Olympia School Board race, County race solidifies
Incumbent Talauna Reed gained ground in a hotly contested Olympia School Board race but Michael Steadman fell further behind in a Thurston County commissioner race in the second day of tallies for the Aug. 1 primary election.
Reed is just 51 votes from second place in the District 1 race for the Olympia School District Board of Directors. She had 4,000 votes as of Wednesday compared to just 2,751 votes on Tuesday.
Andrew M. Flojo, who held on to second place, reached 4,051 total votes after gaining 1,001 votes in the second day. He remains behind Maria R. Flores, who had 7,213 total votes as of Wednesday, up from 5,416 on Tuesday.
In the District 5 County Commissioner race, Steadman, a Democrat and current Lacey City Council member, remained in third place, but lost ground to second-place independent candidate Terry S. Ballard. Meanwhile, Emily Clouse, a Democrat, pulled further ahead.
Only the top-two vote-getters in the Olympia School Board and District 5 race will advance to the general election. With about 5,000 ballots left to be counted, Steadman and Reed remained in danger of being left out.
The voter turnout for the election increased from 20.8% on Tuesday to 27.6% on Wednesday out of 191,908 registered voters. Auditor May Hall said on Tuesday she remained optimistic that voter turnout could reach about 30% when all votes are counted.
Thurston County will post updated results daily until the county certifies the results on Aug. 15. The Washington Secretary of State will then certify the results by Aug. 18.
District 5
The results for the District 5 race showed Clouse maintained her lead over Ballard. Clouse, a veteran with a human services background, had 4,483 votes as of Wednesday compared to 3,206 votes on Tuesday.
Ballard, a veteran who frequently comments at county meetings, saw his vote count increase from 1,645 on Tuesday to 2,250 on Wednesday.
Steadman, also a veteran, gained 405 votes for a total of 1,881 votes. Sarah Morris, a Realtor, had 1,376 votes as of Wednesday and remained in fourth place.
On Tuesday, Steadman said he felt confident he could catch up to Ballard, but Wednesday’s results show him falling further behind. In 2020, he lost the District 2 commissioner race to current commissioner Gary Edwards.
District 5 encompasses an area south of Lacey and extends between Olympia and Lacey towards Johnson Point.
District 4
Voters were still leaning in favor of electing of Vivian Eason, an independent, to Position 4 over Tenino Mayor Wayne Fournier.
Tallies for District 4 showed Eason, a veteran and former county employee, leading with 6,540 votes as of Wednesday. On Tuesday, she had 4,721 votes.
Fournier, a Democrat, had 4,695 votes on Wednesday compared to 3,447 votes on Tuesday.
These results are practically moot. Both Eason and Fournier will advance to the general election as they are the only two candidates in the race.
County commissioners are effectively nominated by their district in the primary, then elected by all county voters in November, according to Washington state law. Hall told The Olympian that county commissioner contests with just two candidates are still placed on the primary ballot because they are partisan races.
District 4 covers southwest Thurston County including south Tumwater and the cities of Tenino, Bucoda and Rainier.
