Report · Columbia County
Unopposed Elections in Columbia County, WA
16 of the 19 races on the November 2025 general election ballot in Columbia County had exactly one candidate — 84.2% were decided before anyone voted.
84.2%
of races in Columbia County had no opponent on the 2025 ballot — 16 of 19
A race counts as uncontested when exactly one candidate appeared on the ballot. Write-in lines and ballot measures are excluded.
Source WA Secretary of State official general election results, November 2025 · as of 2026-08-07
01
By kind of office
Not evenly distributed. The seats with the highest rates are mostly the ones with the lowest profile — park, cemetery, water and fire districts, where a filing fee and a handful of signatures is the whole barrier.
| Office type | Races | Unopposed | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fire district | 3 | 3 | 100% |
| County | 2 | 2 | 100% |
| Port district | 1 | 1 | 100% |
| School district | 6 | 5 | 83.3% |
| City | 7 | 5 | 71.4% |
Source WA Secretary of State official general election results · as of 2026-08-07 · 5 office types
02
The seats that went unopposed
Every one of these was decided by a single person filing. The full list is here rather than a sample, so a specific office can be looked up instead of inferred from a rate.
| Seat | Type | Elected unopposed | Votes |
|---|---|---|---|
| City Of Dayton Council Member No. 3 | City | Glenn Hagfeldt | 698 |
| City Of Dayton Council Member No. 5 | City | Shannon Leanne Mcmillen | 660 |
| City Of Dayton Council Member No. 7 | City | Mike Smith | 650 |
| Town Of Starbuck Council Member No. 4 | City | Tammy L Trusty | 44 |
| Town Of Starbuck Mayor | City | Charles Hill | 48 |
| Columbia County Pool District Pool District Commissioner No. 2 | County | Lisa Naylor | 1,044 |
| Columbia County Pool District Pool District Commissioner No. 5 | County | Terri L Hessler | 1,107 |
| Columbia Co Fire District No. 1 Fire District No. 1 Commissioner No. 3 | Fire district | Charles S Mead V | 16 |
| Columbia Co Fire District No. 2 Fire District No. 2 Commissioner No. 1 | Fire district | Tre Brannock | 58 |
| Columbia Co Fire District No. 3 Fire District No. 3 Commissioner No. 3 | Fire district | Richard Turner | 1,068 |
| Columbia Co Port District Port District Commissioner No. 1 | Port district | Scott Hudson | 1,131 |
| Dayton School District No. 2 School Director No. 1 | School district | Ryan Paulson | 1,056 |
| Dayton School District No. 2 School Director No. 5 Al | School district | Jeff Mccowen | 1,051 |
| Starbuck School District No. 35 School Director No. 3 | School district | Karen Rubenser | 51 |
| Starbuck School District No. 35 School Director No. 4 Al | School district | Deb Hays | 57 |
| Starbuck School District No. 35 School Director No. 5 Al | School district | Shelley Hall | 50 |
Source WA Secretary of State official general election results, November 2025 · as of 2026-08-07 · winner named for 16 of 16 seats
03
What this page will not compute
Each of these is a number a reader might reasonably expect. None of them follow from the records we hold, so we do not publish them.
- Whether a seat was winnable
- We know one candidate filed. We do not know whether anyone considered running and decided against it, so we cannot say a seat was conceded rather than simply uncontested.
- Why a seat went unopposed
- The result export records the outcome, not the reason. Incumbency, obscurity, an unpaid role and a genuinely satisfied electorate all produce the same row.
- A trend from one cycle to the next
- Washington runs local elections in odd years and state elections in even ones, so consecutive cycles are not comparable. The by-election table above is grouped for that reason and should be read down the odd years only.
- Anything about the reader’s own ballot
- This page has no location. County pages cover a whole county, which contains many overlapping districts, and we do not know which of them you vote in.
04
Definitions
What was counted, so the figure can be checked rather than taken.
- Uncontested
- Exactly one candidate appeared on the general election ballot for that seat. Write-in lines are not counted as candidates.
- Race
- One seat on one ballot in one election. A three-seat board contributes three races.
- Excluded
- Ballot measures, recall questions and advisory votes. None of them have candidates.
- Top-two primary
- Washington narrows most races to two candidates before the general. A race can be genuinely contested in August and appear uncontested here only if a single person filed at all — not merely because one was eliminated.
- Multi-county races
- Excluded from county tables, because a race spanning several counties cannot be attributed to one. They are included in the statewide totals.
05
Reproduce this
The figures come from one table built from the Secretary of State result exports. This is the query behind them.
SELECT COUNT(*) races, SUM(is_uncontested) unopposed FROM race_contests WHERE election_type = 'general' AND election_date = '20251104' AND counties = 'Columbia';
- Source
- Washington Secretary of State official general election results, 2014–2025.
- Uncontested flag
- Set when exactly one candidate row exists for a seat on a general election ballot. Computed at import, not by hand.
- Rebuilt
- 2026-08-07. Figures change when the state publishes a corrected canvass.
Cite this report
This is public-records reporting. Use it, and say where it came from.
“Unopposed Elections in Columbia County, WA,” WashingtonIndependents.org, data as of 2026-08-07, accessed 2026-08-08. https://washingtonindependents.org/uncontested/columbia/