By Laura L. Myers
SEATTLE, Nov 9 (Reuters) – Former Democratic U.S.
Representative Jay Inslee will be Washington state’s next
governor after Republican state Attorney General Rob McKenna
conceded defeat on Friday.
Inslee, who was first elected to Congress in 1999, resigned
in March to run for the governorship after Democratic incumbent
Christine Gregoire said she would not seek a third term.
“It’s time for all of us to unite across the state of
Washington to build a working Washington,” Inslee said following
McKenna’s concession. “Let’s get to work.”
“It appears we will fall short of victory when the last
ballots are counted,” McKenna said in a video concession
statement posted to his campaign website. “After 17 months of
hard work, that is a very disappointing result.”
McKenna had hoped to become the first Republican governor in
Washington state in 30 years. He said he called Inslee to
congratulate him and wish him luck.
Inslee said at the time of his announcement that seeing
state Republicans pursue plans to slash education funding was a
factor in his decision to leave the U.S. House of
Representatives and run for governor.
Washington uses mail-in voting exclusively, and final
results in the race took several days to tally. The most recent
results, with nearly 2.6 million votes counted, had Inslee
leading with 50.7 percent of the vote to 49.3 percent for
McKenna.
(Writing and additional reporting by Mary Slosson; Editing by
Cynthia Johnston and Peter Cooney)
