Ed.: The essays, analyses and opinions presented as Community Voices express the perspectives of their authors on topics of interest and importance to the community, and are not intended to reflect perspectives on behalf of Salish Current.
Updated Nov. 24, 2025
Whatcom County turnout for the Nov. 4 election was low at 45.18%: no major offices or ballot measures were on the ballot. In 2021, 48.97% voted. Last year, 82.89%. [Ed.: 2021 voter turnout percentage corrected.]
Top line: it’s hard to beat incumbents who are perceived to have done a good job. Whatcom County continues to trend Democratic. Voters actually read ballot propositions. Voter unrest was not apparent. A slate of knowledgeable and qualified candidates were on the ballot. Of the major races — county council, Bellingham city council and Port of Bellingham — candidates formally backed by Democrats swept the field.
There were only two countywide contested races — County Council At Large (incumbent Barry Buchanan with 63% versus Misty Flowers with 37%) and Port District 2 (incumbent Ken Bell with 49% versus Carly James with 51%. This is too small a sample to make conclusions about voters’ motivations.
Flowers’ prior electoral forays and her campaign this year were not particularly strong. Flowers’ identification as chair of the Whatcom County Republicans didn’t help.
In the Port race, Bell’s major problem was seven years of bad publicity for the Port. Although he was not involved in making the deal with Harcourt to develop the Georgia-Pacific property, he was tagged with the debacle that Harcourt’s development became. The noise and disruption of the failed ABC recycling contract happened on his watch. The change of leaders on the Port staff came too late to erase these problems. James went from a novice campaigner to a credible alternative to Bell’s experience. This was one of the most civil, respectful and issue-oriented campaigns the county has seen in years.
We decided to increase the Port commissioners from three to five, 65% to 35%, allowing better control of the Port by elected leaders rather than staff. Now two commissioners can meet without calling an open public meeting. The new commissioners will be elected next year from districts that will likely mirror two of the county council districts.
County Council District 2, an open seat, pitted Elizabeth Boyle with 71% against Maya Morales with 28%. The policy differences were stark. Boyle’s well-funded campaign emphasized housing, health, healthy communities, environmental protection, and making the justice system work. Morales’ shoestring campaign highlighted representation of renters; affordable housing for all; ensuring an accountable, transparent and participatory county government; and securing the rights of all people. She highlighted her identity as a Latina, LGBTQ+, working-class individual. The voters didn’t buy what she had on offer.
County Council District 3, was also an open seat since incumbent Tyler Byrd lost in the primary. Jessica Rienstra’s 57% outpolled Kyle Christensen’s 43%. District 3 has been a swing district trending Democratic for the last eight years and this year a very strong progressive candidate with much institutional support won. Rienstra had almost 50% in the primary and picked up the percentage of the other progressive primary candidate. Rumors that Byrd’s voters might abandon Christensen were not borne out: Christensen received roughly the same percentage as he and Byrd together received in the primary. Rienstra and Christensen ran on local issues and neither tried to “nationalize the election” so it’s hard to conclude that the national climate significantly affected the outcome.
Three Bellingham City Council seats each saw incumbents face very credible challengers. All the incumbents won: Hollie Huthman and Skip Williams by 2:1 and Michael Lilliquist by 3:2. Unseating an incumbent without a widely acknowledged weakness is really hard, even when the challenger is well qualified, articulate, adequately funded and capable of being an excellent city council member. The salient issue was housing and how Bellingham will accommodate the influx of new residents that are predicted for the next decades. The voters sent a mixed message.
Challengers Leah Wainman (versus Huthman) in Ward 2 and Kerri Burnside (versus Williams) in Ward 4 emphasized the need for the City to assist affordable and low income housing. The incumbents agreed that more such housing was needed but stood on Mayor Lund’s proposal for housing, which also includes a lot of market-rate housing. Concluding that the mayor’s plan was given rousing support would be over-reading the results: rather it’s more likely that Wainman and Burnside didn’t give the electorate a strong enough reason to oust well-regarded opponents.
Ward 6 (Lilliquist versus Andrew Reding) had the sharpest debate on housing. Reding did his best to advance a housing everywhere agenda, but it wasn’t enough to overcome Lilliquist’s essentially status quo position.
Voters had a record 12 county charter amendments to consider. Many passed, many didn’t. Only two were close. Seven percent of the folks voting did not cast ballots on these questions. Three lessons: (1) voters considered what they voted on and didn’t approve or disapprove of every proposal. (2) Measures that obviously increased spending were rejected. (3) The large number of ballot propositions did not appreciably deter voters.
— By Dan Raas
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