Palumbo widens lead on Moscoso in latest 1st District Senate primary returns

A new round of results from from the state-wide primary election were posted by King and Snohomish Counties on Thursday afternoon. Guy Palumbo continued to widen his lead over Rep. Luis Moscoso for the second spot in the general election running for the 1st District Senate seat.

A new round of results from from the state-wide primary election were posted by King and Snohomish Counties on Thursday afternoon. Guy Palumbo continued to widen his lead over Rep. Luis Moscoso for the second spot in the general election running for the 1st District Senate seat.

Palumbo (30.63 percent) now has a 350 vote lead over Moscoso (28.89 percent) in the newest primary results. Both Palumbo and Moscoso are registered Democrats and the winner will challenge Republican Mindie Wirth, who has 8,070 votes and 40.22 percent in the primary race. On election night, Palumbo was narrowly trailing Moscoso by 1 percent in the first returns but has since take the lead and subsequently widened that lead in Wednesday and Thursday night returns.

The top two candidates move on to the general election in November to see who will take over for the retiring Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe. More ballot returns are being counted and those results will be released later today.

The primary also included races for the two House seats from the 1st District. Incumbent Rep. Derek Stanford (D), who earned nearly 50 percent of the votes in a four person primary, will be challenged by Neil Thannisch (R). Thannisch has 23 percent, while Brian M. Travis has 15 percent and Kazuaki (Kaz) Sugiyama has nearly 11 percent of the primary vote.

In the race to replace Moscoso, Republican Jim Langston has 40 percent of the primary vote, while Kirkland City Council member and Democrat Shelley Kloba has 32 percent of the vote in a five person race.