Republican Joel McEntire has conceded his race against longtime incumbent Democrat Brian Blake in the District 19, Position 2 State Representative race.
“I’m behind by about 3,000 votes,” said McEntire in a social media post late Wednesday. “Although ballots are still being counted and will be for a few days, it’s clear that mathematically it doesn’t look like I’m going to be able to make up the difference in the race, so I’m taking this opportunity to say Brian Blake will most likely retain the seat, and I will not fill that seat.”
As of Friday morning, 16-year incumbent Blake led with 53.87 percent of the district wide vote, 27,531-23,577. While McEntire leads in his own county, Wahkiakum, with 50.8 percent of the vote (1,234-1,195), and heavily Republican Lewis County with 66.31 percent of the vote (2,167-1,101), Blake is taking Grays Harbor County in convincing fashion with 58.13 percent of the vote, 7,376-5,313. Blake also holds significant leads in Pacific County — 56.76 percent, 4,876-3,715 — and Cowlitz County — 53.8 percent, 12,983-11,148— as of Friday.
Grays Harbor, Wahkiakum and Lewis counties will not count ballots again until the Nov. 27 election certification date; Cowlitz and Pacific counties had counts scheduled for Friday.
McEntire, a middle school science teacher and Marine from Cathlamet, said the fact he was deployed to Kuwait during all but two months of the campaign may have hurt his chances, and if he decides to run again in the future he will withdraw his name if deployment takes him away during the campaign. He also takes pride in how his campaign was run; honestly and openly.
“I ran the race 100 percent the best I could,” he said. “But Rep. Blake ran the race he needed to run to remain in his seat, and I say good job for him for winning.”
He said he has no regrets in running and will, as he has in the past, reach out to Blake as a citizen of the district with any issues of concern in the 19th while Blake is in office.
“I enjoyed running, I had a great time,” said McEntire. “I went as hard and ethical as I could and came up short, and I wouldn’t change a thing. To the people who donated time and money, I feel for those people because they put faith in my campaign. Some of them are on fixed incomes, not the wealthiest people, and still gave. I am extremely thankful to those people who gave to the campaign and believed in the campaign and the message.”
McEntire was recently elected as chairman of the Wahkiakum County Republican Party, but between his deployment and his campaign he had to defer a lot of that responsibility to others within the party.
“Now it’s a matter of me getting back into the county party, getting officers elected,” he said. “There are a lot of things I have to do, and we need to get a platform ready for the 2020 election.”
He said the Republican Party has some work to do in general before the next election.
“We need to work on our messaging, and recruiting to get better people to run,” said McEntire. “And it’s not just us, the Democrats have to do the same thing too.”
While victory for himself and his party was his ultimate goal, he said he has things too good in his life to dwell on one setback.
“Every campaign has a winner and a loser,” he said. “I knew what I was getting into.” McEntire added, “I live in this free country, this beautiful state with this beautiful view right outside my house. I have my health, my family and kids. To ask for more is selfish.”
