Unofficial election results for the August 17 primary election for position 1, which had five candidates going into the primary, show Republican Jason Overstreet, a Seattle firefighter and Blaine city council member, received 46 percent of the vote with 15,797 votes while Democrat Al Jensen, a detective with the Bellingham police department, received 27 percent with 9,258 votes.

The race will be closer than it looks at present; Richard May, the other Democratic candidate in the contest, received 4,942 votes as of press time.

The other 42nd district general election pairings are Republican Vincent Buys and incumbent Kelli Linville, (D-Bellingham) for state representative position 2 and Republican Doug Ericksen and Democrat Pat Jerns for state senator.

Buys received 52 percent of the vote with 18,396 votes while Linville received 48 percent with 17,058 votes. In the 42nd district state senate race, Ericksen received 61 percent with 21,744 votes while Jerns received 39 percent with 13,622 votes.

In the U.S. congressional races, Democratic Senator Patty Murray will face Republican Dino Rossi in the general election. Murray pulled in 46 percent of the vote with 664,496 votes while Rossi secured 33 percent with 479,606 votes. Murray has no reason to feel complacent as the other Republican candidates pulled in a total of 238,000 votes.

The general election race for U.S. representative 2 will pit Democratic Representative Rick Larsen against Republican challenger John Koster.

The results in their primary could not have been much closer, with preliminary results showing Koster securing 42.2 percent at 73,469 votes and Larsen receiving 42.1 percent of the vote with 73,309. The other Democratic and Republican challengers received 18,040 and 9,465 votes, respectively.