POULSBO — With about 30,000 votes still to be tallied, incumbent State Representative Bev Woods (R) led challenger Sherry Appleton (D) for the position 2 seat as the first set of unofficial election results were announced Tuesday.
Woods, a resident of Poulsbo, serves on the Legislative Transportation Committee, the Ferry Task Force and the Puget Sound Regional Transportation Board.
Appleton, who also resides in Poulsbo, served on the Poulsbo City Council and has spent several years working in Olympia. She is a commissioner with the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the Washington State Commission on Judicial Conduct.
Appleton topped Terrell Duchene (D) of Bremerton in the September primary election to represent her party.
Kitsap County was scheduled to update its election results at 3 p.m. Nov. 8, after Herald press time. Preliminary results showed Woods holding 52.2 percent of votes, followed by Appleton with 47.7 percent.
Appleton described herself as being “cautiously optimistic” about the anticipated new numbers from the county.
“At this point we’re behind 730 votes which is a very big gap, but there are still 30,000 votes out there so we’re just going to hang in there,” Appleton said of the results Thursday. “It’s not an insurmountable lead, we’re just going to wait for the results from (the) update and see where we go from there.”
Even so, she said she felt she and her volunteers ran the best campaign possible and, no matter the outcome, she felt a real sense of accomplishment.
“I actually have no regrets. There’s nothing I would have changed,” she added.
Holding the upper hand from the get go, incumbent Woods said she felt much more confident that the remaining votes would not upset her lead. In a campaign season that featured prominent negative campaigns, some of which have resulted in filed grievances, Woods attributed her success in part to staying out of the fray.
“I’m extremely happy with my campaign, my volunteers and the people who put my campaign together. I’m very happy my campaign was a very clean campaign and I think the people are speaking loud and clear in re-electing me,” Woods explained. “Now, I’m just concentrating on transportation and budget and things like that — things I’ll be dealing with in the legislature.”
