Wednesday, November 7, 2012

STATE ELECTIONS

► In today’s Seattle Times — Inslee takes strong lead, but McKenna won’t concede — Buoyed by strong support in King County, Democrat Jay Inslee looked well-positioned to maintain his party’s three-decade winning streak for the governor’s office. Inslee led Republican Rob McKenna by about 51.3 to 48.7 percent statewide in votes counted Tuesday.

► From AP — 1.2 million ballots remain to be counted in Washington — Secretary of State Sam Reed says more results are due from counties Wednesday afternoon will likely show trends in the tight race for governor and other close races.

► In today’s Seattle Times — Ferguson pulls in strong support over Dunn — In the state’s most expensive and perhaps ugliest attorney general’s race, Democrat Bob Ferguson held a commanding lead over Republican Reagan Dunn in Tuesday’s incomplete vote count.

► In today’s Seattle Times — McCloud wins state Supreme Court race, foils Sanders’ comeback bid — Longtime appellate attorney Sheryl Gordon McCloud won a six-year term on the state Supreme Court, defeating former Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders.

► From AP — Washington 1st state to legalize recreational pot use

► In today’s Seattle Times — Gay marriage measure passing in initial returns

► In today’s Seattle Times —Charter-school initiative has slim lead

► In today’s Seattle Times — Democrats keep majority in Olympia — Republican hopes of winning control of the state Senate foundered, as the party found itself in danger of losing two of its current seats even while winning two new ones.

► In today’s Columbian — Benton-Probst race still ‘too close to call’ — Tuesday’s cliffhanger for the 17th’s Senate seat has current state Rep. Tim Probst (D-Vancouver) holding a lead of 222 votes over incumbent Sen. Don Benton (R-Vancouver).

► In today’s (Everett) Herald — McAuliffe winning, Haugen losing in state Senate races — Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen (D-Camano Is.), who has represented the 10th LD for 30 years, is losing to state Rep. Barbara Bailey (R-Oak Harbor).

► In today’s (Longview) Daily News — Braun upsets Sen. Swecker in 20th LD — Political newcomer John Braun (R) swamped long-time state Sen. Dan Swecker by capturing 57.2% of the vote.

► In today’s Wenatchee World — Hawkins defeating Armstrong in legislative upset

PRESIDENT

► In today’s Washington Post — Rejuvenated Obama re-elected as president after bruising campaign — Barack Obama was elected to a second presidential term Tuesday, defeating Republican Mitt Romney by reassembling the political coalition that boosted him to victory four years ago and remaking himself from a hopeful uniter into a determined fighter for middle-class interests. Obama, the nation’s first African American president, scored a decisive electoral college victory by stringing together a series of narrow wins in hotly contested states. Of the election’s seven major battlegrounds, he won at least six.

► In today’s NY Times — President Obama’s success (editorial) — A victory based on jobs, spreading the tax burden and rejecting the politics of deceit.

► In today’s NY Times — On Fox News, a mistrust of pro-Obama numbers last late into night

EDITOR’S NOTE — Sometimes, emerging from your insulated bunker of self-reinforced deceit into reality can be painful.

► Today in The Onion — “I want to congratulate the president,” Romney says in 240,00th and final lie of campaign

U.S. SENATE

► In today’s Seattle Times — As expected, Cantwell breezes to third term in U.S. Senate —  “I’m not going back to the United States Senate to salute stalemate. I’m going back there to put in economic policies to get our people back to work,” said Sen. Maria Cantwell, who drew 59% of the initial vote count. Her priority will be “getting more aviation jobs in Washington state,” she said Tuesday night, adding that voters signaled they want more bipartisanship.

► In today’s NY Times — Democrats deliver string of stinging defeats in U.S. Senate— Democrats snatched Republican Senate seats in Indiana and Massachusetts on Tuesday, averted what was once considered a likely defeat in Missouri and held control of the Senate, handing Republicans a string of stinging defeats for the second campaign season in a row.

“We said we’d defend all of our seats and would put half of their seats in play,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), the chairwoman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, who took that job last year when others had refused it. “No one believed me, but we did just that.”

► This morning from AP — Tester (D) wins U.S. Senate race in Montana

► At TPM — Heidi Heitkamp (D) leads in tight race in North Dakota

► At TPM — In 2013, a record number of women serving in the Senate — The victories of Sens.-elect Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), and Deb Fischer (R-NE) assure that the retirements of Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) will be more than fully offset.

U.S. HOUSE

► In today’s Seattle Times — DelBene beats Koster as Dems hold state’s most competitive district — Democrat Suzan DelBene, a multimillionaire and former Microsoft vice president, pulled off an unexpectedly decisive win in Washington state’s most competitive congressional race.

► In today’s Seattle Times — Democratic state Sen. Derek Kilmer wins race to replace Rep. Dicks — Kilmer, who had 58 percent of the vote, said, “I ran for Congress because a lot of middle-class families and small businesses are struggling, and they need someone who’s going to fight for them.”

► In The Olympian — Denny Heck wins Congressional race— Olympia’s Denny Heck will be the first person to represent Washington state’s newest congressional district after handily dispatching Republican Pierce County Councilman Dick Muri of Steilacoom.

► In today’s LA Times — House Republicans retain majority— Although the GOP will remain in control, there will be plenty of new faces in the next Congress.

MORE ELECTIONS

► In today’s Columbian — Voters soundly reject C-Tran measure — Voters soundly rejected a sales tax increase to help pay for light rail Tuesday, delivering a possible setback to the Columbia River Crossing. C-Tran’s Proposition 1 trailed by a significant margin, according to preliminary election results, with 43.7 percent of voters saying yes and 56.3 percent saying no — a difference of about 13,500 votes.

► From AP — Labor defeats anti-union proposition in California — California voters reaffirmed their support for unions in defeating a provision that would have banned the way labor traditionally raises money to fund political activity. With 75% of precincts reporting, Californians voted 55% against Prop. 32, compared to 45% in support.

BOEING

► At MarketWatch.com — SPEEA wins back pay and benefits for hundreds of Boeing employees in California— Employees who worked in Palmdale and Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., are due back pay and benefits that could total in the millions, according to an arbitrator. The Nov. 1 ruling said the company for years wrongly denied the engineers and technical workers the better pay and benefits of employees represented by SPEEA, IFPTE Local 2001. The ruling rejected every Boeing argument and culminates a near 12-year effort by SPEEA to reestablish union representation for the now more than 550 employees Boeing denied coverage under SPEEA bargaining agreements going back to 1999.

NATIONAL

► In today’s NY Times — Fiscal impasse leads to caution after election — Business leaders and investors on Wall Street reacted cautiously to President Obama’s re-election early Wednesday, warning that the focus would quickly shift from electoral politics to the looming fiscal uncertainty in Washington.

The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 9 a.m.