A giant crude-by-rail terminal in Vancouver, WA: not gonna happen.
A giant crude-by-rail terminal in Vancouver, WA: not gonna happen. KEVIN SCHAFER VIA GETTY IMAGES

Well, looks like big oil canā€™t buy this election. Despite the fact that mega Texas oil company Tesoro gave Kris Greene the largest direct donation to any Washington state candidate in 2017, the people of Vancouver have spokenā€”and they are saying ā€œHells noā€ to Tesoroā€™s plan to build the largest oil terminal in the country at the Port of Vancouver.

Don Orange, who based his campaign on opposing the terminal, won by landslide. Initial results last night showed Orange leading with 64.2 percent and Greene trailing (significantly) behind with only 35.2 percent.

ā€œIā€™m shocked, but Iā€™m so God dang proud of our campaign that worked so hard for this,ā€ Orange told The Columbian on Tuesday night as the early results came pouring in. ā€œWe are Americaā€™s Vancouver, and weā€™ve been heard from tonight. I never imagined any numbers like this.ā€

Orangeā€™s opponent Greene received 90 percent of his campaign donations from Tesoro and Vancouver Energy, who are backers of the terminalā€”the largest corporate donation in the history of Vancouverā€™s port, according to the Sightline Institute.

But it looks like Orangeā€™s victory will seal the oil terminalā€™s fate once and for allā€”heā€™s almost certainly going to vote to cancel Tesoroā€™s lease on the facility, along with fellow anti-oil terminal commissioner Eric LaBrant.

Even though there are only 18,000 votes left to be tallied in the county and it is pretty darn clear Orange is the winner, Greene still has not conceded:

ā€œWe still have a lot of votes that havenā€™t come in yet, so itā€™s not over until itā€™s over,ā€ Greene said at his watch party last night.

Greene, baby, Iā€™ve got some news for youā€”itā€™s over.

Itā€™s over like Kevin Spaceyā€™s career. Over like the Republican control of the Senate in Washington state. Over like last weekā€™s macaroni salad, which has been rotting in the back of my fridge for over a week. I better go take care of that.