Who is running for County Commissioner, District No. 3 — Thurston County in 2026?

Tye Menser is on the November 3, 2026 general election ballot, having advanced from the August 4, 2026 primary.

Is County Commissioner, District No. 3 — Thurston County contested?

No. One name is on the general ballot, so the seat is decided before a vote is cast. Only one candidate advanced from the primary because nobody else filed.

When will the November 3, 2026 results for County Commissioner, District No. 3 — Thurston County be here?

On election night this page carries returns as the counties release them, with the count’s own timestamp and the share of reporting units counted. We publish returns; we do not call races. The certified result replaces them when the state certifies.

Where does the money figure come from?

Contributions each candidate’s committee reported to the Public Disclosure Commission this cycle, joined to the ballot name on ballot name + office family + district number. A candidate who matched no report shows no figure rather than a zero.

County & local contest · Thurston County · general election November 3, 2026

County Commissioner, District No. 3 — Thurston County

Only Tye Menser is on the ballot. This seat is unopposed in the November 3, 2026 general election.

candidate on the primary ballot

write-in lines not counted

on the general ballot

one name: the seat is unopposed

$8,102

reported contributions

1 of 1 candidates matched a PDC report

Sources Secretary of State certified primary results · Public Disclosure Commission candidate committee reports · as of 2026-09-05 · certified August 21, 2026 · key ballot name + office family + district number

Who is on the ballot

The two candidates with the most certified primary votes advance, whatever their party preference. The party line is what each candidate wrote on their declaration, and it is the only party fact on this page.

Candidate · holds office
Tye Menser
Commissioner, Commissioner District All County
DDem
primary
Primary: 13,429 votes, 97.1%
party preference
as stated on the declaration: DEM
reported
$8,102 in contributions

Source Secretary of State certified primary results · as of 2026-09-05 · n 1 · note an official page is linked where the candidate holds office; a candidate page where a PDC committee exists; otherwise the name is text

August 4, 2026 primary — certified results

Every named candidate, in the certified order. The two who advanced are marked. Certified August 21, 2026.

Certified primary results, County Commissioner, District No. 3
Candidate	Party preference	Votes	Share
Tye Menser Advanced holds office	DDem	13,429	97.1%

Source Secretary of State certified primary results, Thurston County file · as of 2026-09-05 · rows 1 · votes 13,827 cast for named candidates and write-ins together · note share is of all votes in the contest, write-ins included

What the campaigns have reported

Contributions each candidate’s committee has reported to the Public Disclosure Commission this cycle. One bar scale across the block; the figure beside each bar is the figure. A candidate with no matching report shows no number, not a zero.

Tye Menser

contributions reported to the PDC · filer MENSS 502

$8,102

Source Public Disclosure Commission, C-3 contributions to candidate committees, this cycle · as of 2026-09-05 · scale $8,102 = full width · key ballot name + office family + district number · unmatched 0 of 1 · caveat totals change as reports are filed

Money spent about these candidates by others

Independent expenditures and electioneering communications — spending about a candidate by a committee that is barred by law from coordinating with them. Spending for a candidate is not money from the candidate. For and against are two facts and are shown as two figures, never one.

No independent expenditure or electioneering communication in the PDC feed names a candidate in this contest. That is what the feed holds as of the date below, joined on the key in the source line. It is not a finding that none was made: C-6 reports are filed within days of the spending, and the feed is refreshed on a schedule.

Last checked 2026-09-05

Source Public Disclosure Commission, C-6 independent expenditure and electioneering communication reports naming a candidate, this cycle · as of 2026-09-05 · key ballot name + office family + district number · note a report with no stance filed is listed by spender and is in neither bar · caveat for and against are not netted

05 · component 09

How to run for this office

This is an office, not a possession. It is filled by whoever files for it and wins, and the requirements are the same for everyone. This section is on every race page, whoever is in the race.

Term, next regular election and filing window for this office
Seat	Term	Next regular election	Filing opens
County Commissioner, District No. 3	4 years · RCW 36.32.030	2030	May 2030 · one week; there is no late filing

What filing requires. A declaration of candidacy, filed online or with the county auditor during one week in May (RCW 29A.24.050); a fee of one percent of the office’s annual salary, or a petition of signatures instead (RCW 29A.24.091); and being a registered voter living in the district on the day you file (RCW 29A.24.075). No signatures, no party, no prior office.

Reporting follows money, not candidacy. Registering with the Public Disclosure Commission and filing contribution reports is triggered by raising and spending, not by putting your name in. A campaign that stays under the mini-reporting threshold files a short form and nothing more.

We cannot yet tell you what filing costs. The fee is one percent of the office’s annual salary, which makes it a specific dollar amount rather than a rule — and a page that makes you compute your own filing fee has not told you the filing fee. Salaries are not in the record we hold, so the figure is missing rather than estimated. For a seat that pays nothing, the fee is nothing.

Sources RCW 29A.24 (candidate filing) · RCW 36.32.030 (term) · as of 2026-09-05 · basis this cycle's general election plus the statutory term

What this page will not compute

A race page is where a forecast is expected, which makes it the page where computing one is most tempting. Each of these would make the page more useful and less true.

No projection.: The primary share is a fact about August. Carrying it to November is a model whose error is nowhere in the record. The certified result is printed; the forecast is not.
No “competitive” label.: Close or safe is a prediction wearing an adjective. The margin is on the page; the word is the reader’s.
No per-candidate ranking.: Candidates appear in the certified order of the primary. No score, no grade, no frontrunner.
No net money.: Spending for and spending against are two facts. Subtracting one from the other manufactures a third that nobody reported.
No connected-records section.: A contest is not a node in the entity graph — it has no record of its own and draws no edges. Each candidate’s own page carries theirs.
No location.: We do not detect where you are and never will. The contest names its county; the reader knows their own.
No race calls.: After the election this page carries returns as the counties release them, with the count’s own timestamp. The only “decided” state is the certifying authority’s.

Common questions

Who is running for County Commissioner, District No. 3 — Thurston County in 2026?: Tye Menser is on the November 3, 2026 general election ballot, having advanced from the August 4, 2026 primary.
Is County Commissioner, District No. 3 — Thurston County contested?: No. One name is on the general ballot, so the seat is decided before a vote is cast. Only one candidate advanced from the primary because nobody else filed.
When will the November 3, 2026 results for County Commissioner, District No. 3 — Thurston County be here?: On election night this page carries returns as the counties release them, with the count’s own timestamp and the share of reporting units counted. We publish returns; we do not call races. The certified result replaces them when the state certifies.
Where does the money figure come from?: Contributions each candidate’s committee reported to the Public Disclosure Commission this cycle, joined to the ballot name on ballot name + office family + district number. A candidate who matched no report shows no figure rather than a zero.

Answers are generated from the same payload as the sections above and emitted as FAQPage structured data, so a machine reader gets the identical text a person sees.

Cite this page

This is public-records reporting. Use it, and say where it came from.

“County Commissioner, District No. 3 — Thurston County,” WashingtonIndependents.org, data as of 2026-09-05, accessed 2026-09-19. https://washingtonindependents.org/election/2026/thurston-county-commissioner-district-no-3/

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Our tables, figures and notes on this page are released under CC BY 4.0 — reuse them, including commercially, with attribution. The underlying records are public records of the State of Washington and were never ours to license.

Where this page comes from

Every figure above is read from a primary source and rebuilt on a schedule. Nothing here is modelled or inferred; where a source is silent the page says so rather than filling the gap.

The contest: the Secretary of State’s certified August 4, 2026 primary, Thurston County file. A contest in the statewide file is read from that file alone; a county’s copy is a partial count and is never merged.
Who advanced: the two named candidates with the most certified votes, whatever their party preference. One named candidate means the seat is unopposed. Write-in lines are not candidates.
Identity: a candidate is linked to an official page only when exactly one official matches their name; two officials sharing a first and last name identify neither, and the name stays text. A candidate page is linked by PDC filer id.
Money: PDC C-3 contributions to candidate committees this cycle, joined on ballot name + office family + district number. A name matching two filers is refused.
Outside money: PDC C-6 independent expenditures and electioneering communications naming the candidate, split by the stance the spender filed. For and against are never netted.
Next election: this cycle’s general election plus the statutory term (RCW 36.32.030).
Returns: on election night the counties’ released returns appear above with the snapshot’s own timestamp. We publish returns; we do not call races.