(L-R) If Pinky Vargas and Emily Randall win, Democrats will increase their majority by four in the State Senate.
(L-R) If Pinky Vargas and Emily Randall win, Democrats will increase their majority by four in the State Senate. Courtesy of the Campaigns

We're still waiting on the outcomes of two State Senate races (one in the 42nd LD and one in the 26th LD) and two State House races (one in the 42nd LD and one in the 10th LD), neither of which will likely be decided for a few weeks.

In the latest drop, Democrat Emily Randall narrowed the gap between her and Pierce County Republican chair Marty McClendon to 74 votes. She was losing by more than 200 votes on Friday. They're both running for State Senate in the 26th LD, which includes Kitsap and Pierce counties, and the race will probably remain close as votes continue to drip in. The big question is whether the race ends up being close enough to trigger a recount. Right now it's close enough, but that could change in the coming days.

In the 10th, Democrat Dave Paul now leads State House Rep. Dave Hayes by 295 votes. With less than half a point of difference between them, this race is in recount territory.

There are two incredibly tight races up in 42nd District. Democrat Pinky Vargas is still 72 votes behind Trump-thumping state senator Doug Ericksen, and DSA member Justin Boneau is still 131 votes behind two-term state House Rep. Luanne Van Werven. Unfortunately, we won't know much about anything up there until November 26th, the day before votes are certified. A representative from Whatcom County elections told me over the phone that the county won't drop more ballots because they don't have enough left to justify a drop. Right now, they only have 32. If during the ballot-confirmation process the number of remaining ballots reaches a certain threshold, then they'll drop more. Until then, we wait.

*Update*Whatcom County auditor Debbie Adelstein says that the county will post another ballot count this afternoon. In order to protect the identities of voters, she says, they need at least 50 ballots in order to justify a drop. In the last week the county has received about 500 ballots that still need to be confirmed and counted. These are ballots with signature challenges, or ballots from other counties that were meant for Whatcom. If the two races are close enough to initiate a manual recount (less than 150 votes and .25 point difference between the two candidates), the process might take eight or so days to complete. Whatcom performed a hand recount for the primary race in the 2nd Congressional District race in August, which took four days.

With wins from Claire Wilson and Mona Das, the Democrats will pick up at least two seats in the Senate. If Vargas and Randall pull though, that margin will increase to four.

In the House, Democrats picked up both seats in the 5th LD (Bill Ramos and Lisa Callan), one seat in the 28th LD (Mari Leavitt), one in the 42nd (Sharon Shewmake), one in the 44th LD (Jared M. Mead), and one in the 47th LD (Debra Entenman). With these victories, they've expanded their majority to 14, according to a representative from the Washington State Democrats. If they win in the seat in the 10th and the other seat in the 42nd, that margin will increase to 16, which should give them plenty of room to maneuver.