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As the results in the race for Washington State Supreme Court Justice Position 8 rolled in after the August 7 primary election, it seemed clear to seasoned political observers that something was very wrong. Kitsap County attorney Bruce Danielson, who was described by the head of his local bar association as having "zero qualifications to be on the bench," and who had raised exactly $0 for his largely nonexistent campaign, was pulling in nearly 440,000 votes and winning 29 counties, including every single county in Eastern Washington.
His opponent: Incumbent state supreme court justice Steve Gonzalez, who was flush with endorsements, had raised $340,000, and ended up with only 10 counties on his side, all of them in Western Washington.
Due to the large populations of those Western Washington counties, Gonzalez won the election, netting 60 percent of the statewide vote to Danielson's 40. And, following the unique rules for two-person judicial primaries, that was that—Gonzalez will keep his seat for the next six years. Clearly, however, something odd had happened in this race.
When The Stranger and other news outlets suggested that the only way to really explain the results was prejudicial voting by Eastern Washingtonians who apparently preferred the Anglo surname Danielson over the Latino surname Gonzalez—candidate qualifications be damned—many cried foul.
"Not so fast," wrote one commenter on Slog, The Stranger's blog, on August 8. "Perhaps the part of the state that's basically Republican used their right to vote to vote for someone who apparently shared their values." (Never mind that there was no statewide voters' pamphlet this year due to budget constraints, so it would have been hard for most Eastern Washington voters to know what Danielson's values actually were.)
Similarly, in an August 17 letter to the Seattle Times, Michael G. Hanks of Federal Way argued with a Seattle Times editorial that said the Danielson-Gonzalez results showed "racially polarized voting" and proved the need for election reform. "The Times suggests supporting evidence for its assertion will be provided in the coming weeks by University of Washington researchers," Hanks wrote. "Can't The Times wait for those fact-based conclusions before it disparages every nonminority voter who decided to support Bruce Danielson?"
Well, now those fact-based conclusions are in.
