Mason County voted solidly Republican

For the third consecutive presidential election, Mason County was the only Washington county on Puget Sound to cast a majority of votes for Donald Trump.

In fact, the results were solidly red: not a single Democrat at any level of government garnered a majority of votes in Mason County in the Nov. 5 general election. The election results are scheduled to be certified on Nov. 26.

Voter turnout in Mason County was 77.37%, with 36,013 of 46,547 registered voters casting votes, according to the Mason County Auditor’s Office latest update at 4 p.m. Tuesday. The statewide average was 74.27%, according to the state Secretary of State’s elections division.

“Everything went very smooth,” Marie Stevenson, the county’s election superintendent, said in an interview with the Journal Tuesday. “None of the ballot box collection teams had any problems.”

But a challenge that did emerge was matching the ballot signatures of young voters with their signatures on record at the election office, Stevenson said. Signatures made on a computer tablet can differ greatly from one made with a pen on a table, she said. Her office is getting new signatures from those voters, she said.

In an interview with the Journal on Tuesday morning, Mason County Auditor Steve Duenkel said the final ballots are trickling in by mail. He estimated about 1,000 remained to be counted.

Duenkel said the previous Friday’s numbers showed 33.9% of Mason County residents who cast ballots did so by mail, and 67% at ballot drop-off boxes.

In the most recent ballot count from the Mason County Auditor’s Office released Tuesday afternoon, Trump received 17,623 votes in Mason County for 49.34%, and Democrat Kamala Harris 16,812 votes for 47.07%. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. received 641 votes for 1.79%.

Trump garnered fewer votes in Mason County then he did in 2020, Duenkel said. Maybe for some people “there was a perception that Trump could never win Washington, so why bother?” he said.

Harris also received fewer votes in Mason County than Joe Biden did in 2020. “I sense there was some frustration and uncertainty about the process” of replacing Biden with Harris on the ticket, he said. Duenkel noted that neither Trump or Harris campaigned in Washington.

Duenkel said he also sensed that voters were perplexed by the statewide initiatives. Many voters had crossed out their original choice to vote differently, he said.

The only complaint the department received at the polls was in Belfair, where officials asked a person wearing a campaign sweatshirt to either cover it with a coat, take it off or turn it inside out, he said.

In the races for the Mason County Commission, Independent Randy Neatherlin got 18,538 votes for 55.08% and Republican William Harris 14,920 votes for 44.33%, earning Neatherlin a fourth term representing District 1.

In the race to represent District 2 on the Mason County Commission, Republican Pat Tarzwell received 17,332 votes for 52.5% to defeat Tom Beben, who stated no party preference and had 15,563 votes for 47.14%.

Republican Travis Couture earned a second term as a state representative in position 2 in the 35th District with 19,886 votes for 56.61% and Democrat James DeHart 14,001 votes for 41.26%.

Running unopposed, Republican Dan Griffey received 24,727 votes for 94.87% to secure another term in position 2 representing the 35th District.

In Mason County, Republican Drew MacEwen received 19,312 votes for 56.04% to represent the 6th District in the U.S. House of Representatives. But districtwide, MacEwen lost to Democrat Emily Randall, who received 218,564 votes for 56.69%. She will replace Derek Kilmer, while MacEwen will continue his term representing District 35 in the state House.

In Mason County, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell received 17,186 votes for 49.47% and her Republican challenger Raul Garcia 17,398 votes for 50.08%. But statewide, Cantwell received 2,133,070 votes for 59.38% to earn a fifth term in the U.S. Senate.

Likewise, state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, a Democrat, received 15,788 votes in Mason County for 44.71% in the governor race and Republican Dave Reichert 19,411 votes for 54.97%, but Ferguson received 55.8% of the vote statewide to replace Democrat Jay Inslee.