Republican Jaime Herrera jumped into the race late but name identity and hard work propelled her to the number two spot in Washington’s top two primary in the third congressional district, enough to put her in a winning position in November.
Granted, this is just a primary with less than 30% voter turnout as of late last night, but Denny Heck, the presumptive Democrat replacement for Brian Baird, has got to be looking at these numbers and shaking in his boots. 52.9% of the voters in the primary went for the Republicans. Democrats garnered 42.95% of the vote. Independents comprised about 4%.
The surprise for me was how incredibly well David W. Hedrick did in the contest. He came in second out of the GOP candidates. David Castillo came in third. I’ve always said what an embarrassment of riches this Third CD race had for “our” side. Castillo is not going away and neither is Hedrick. I hope both run for office again and keep the Republicans sharp and mindful of Tea Party issues.
Hedrick’s performance was a direct result of the power the Tea Party movement wielded in this race. The competence of WePeeps.org shown through in this race last night. They should be proud. They vetted every major candidate and will hold their feet to the fire I’m sure as candidates become electeds.
People may look at this outcome and say it was a defeat for Tea Party candidates, but nothing could be further from the truth. The Tea Party efforts in both the Third CD and Senate race forced candidates to articulate positions and took the race for republicans to a more conservative position on constitutional and fiscal issues.