State Sen. Aaron Reardon has his hometown to thank for his new job as Snohomish County executive.
A Herald computer analysis of final election results shows that Reardon won the county’s top elected position largely due to the votes he picked up in Snohomish County’s biggest city.
Reardon will replace outgoing County Executive Bob Drewel in January. He beat Edmonds City Council member Dave Earling by 4,635 votes in the Nov. 4 election.
But it was Reardon’s strong showing in Everett — where he won 60 percent of the vote — that pushed him over the top.
Reardon picked up 3,246 more votes than Earling in the city he has represented as a lawmaker in Olympia. That was his biggest margin of victory anywhere in the county and accounted for 70 percent of his lead over Earling after all the votes were counted countywide, the analysis found.
A total of 15,949 Everett residents cast ballots in the race out of the city’s 41,425 registered voters.
The race was much closer in the county’s unincorporated areas, where the gap between the candidates was a mere 344 votes. Earling garnered more votes in the rural eastern part of the county. Reardon amassed more votes in the unincorporated northern and southern sections of the county.
A total of 58,517 people in the county’s unincorporated areas voted in the county executive’s race in the November election. There are 164,431 registered voters in the unincorporated areas.
As expected, Earling found strong support in Edmonds, where he has been a city councilman for the past 12 years. But he didn’t dominate there; Earling got just 153 more votes than Reardon.
Earling took the most votes in seven other cities beyond his hometown: Arlington, Bothell, Mill Creek, Monroe, Stanwood, Sultan and Woodway. Earling’s biggest support came in the south county burg of Woodway, where he took 71 percent of the vote.
On a town-by-town basis, Reardon had the edge in November’s general election. He won the most votes in 12 of Snohomish County’s 20 cities.
Brian Parry, Reardon’s campaign manager, said Reardon’s position on hot-button rural issues — such as managing growth and the conversion of agriculture lands to urban uses — hit home with voters in the unincorporated areas.
"We were really pleased with that. Aaron did much better than Democrats typically do," Parry said. "That’s part of what made it close."
But Reardon’s campaign also won big in some south county cities, including Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace, places closer to his opponent’s home in Edmonds.
"I think his message about government accountability and improving the local economy … resonated well," Parry said.
Parry said the campaign needed to take those areas outside Everett to guarantee victory.
"We did very well in Everett. That wouldn’t have sealed the deal if we wouldn’t have picked up a lot of swing areas," Parry said, including Lynnwood and parts of the County Council’s District 3, which spans the Edmonds area.
"We won Lynnwood overwhelmingly, and we did very well in Edmonds, about 49.5 percent," he said.
Like the Democrats, Republicans say low voter turnout was a huge factor in the outcome of the election. Voter turnout was roughly 40 percent of registered voters.
Reardon will be the county’s third executive. Drewel didn’t run again because of term limits, and the county has never had a Republican executive.
David Adams, executive director of the Republican Party in Snohomish County, said his party has been meeting this week to talk about what it will take to win the executive’s seat in the future.
The party has to do a better job of getting its message out, he said. Some wrongly believe Republicans are elitist and out of touch with women and minorities, he said.
"What we’ve got to do is break out of the labeling that is on us and really define for the voters … who we are and what we stand for," Adams said.
There was a silver lining for Republicans on Election Day, however. Eight candidates who were identified by the party as Republicans won in city races.
Still, the executive’s position was the big political plum.
"It’s disappointing that we lost it. Now it’s a matter of working with the new administration," Adams said, and working together to improve the local economy.
Reporter Brian Kelly: 425-339-3422 or kelly@heraldnet.com.
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