It was in Snohomish County.

Sort of.

In the past few elections, when Democrats on the national level have gotten shellacked, they have looked to the lower level elections to soothe themselves. Now, it's my turn. Yesterday was unequivocally a bad day for Snohomish County Republicans, and thus a bad one for the county in general, if you ask me. Losing the County Council to the Democrats means we're in line for tax hikes, land grabs and who knows what else. But there is something of a silver lining, if you glance down the ballot a bit.

First off, there's the Charter Review Commission. Things didn't go as well for Republicans as they should have. Three commissioners were elected from each council district, and unfortunately, more than three Republicans ran in two of the districts, diluting the Republican vote and meaning fewer were elected than could have been. Even so, the GOP-endorsed candidates did quite well, especially when compared to the Democrat-endorsed ones. Six Republican-endorsed candidates are taking commissioner spots, compared to only three Democrat-endorsed ones. (Results are here, in PDF format, because the Snohomish County Website, despite going down yesterday, is apparently trying to increase their bandwith even further). This gives Republicans 40% of the commission, to 20% Democrats and 40% people not endorsed by either party. Not too shabby. (Congrats, in particular, to friend Eric Earling.)

City Council races went even better for Republicans. 13 of 16 Republican endorsed county council candidates are winning their race, nine of them with actual opponents. Of the three who are losing, two of them are doing so by barely 100 votes or less. Additionally, both Republican candidates up against Democrat opponents won their race. Democrats endorsed fewer candidates, and have stricter rules about who they endorse (they didn't endorse Mark Smith, who was clearly a Democrat--and won his Lynnwood City Council race), so you would think that they would do better, percentage-wise. But that is not the case. Only two of six endorsed Democrats in contested races won. Even including unopposed races, only 50% of them won.

This hardly makes last night a good night for Republicans. But it eases the sting quite a bit. It says good things about the clout of the county party, and implies that it's doing a good job of building a "bench." And that's something.

Additionally, though it's not in Snohomish County, I would be remiss in not mentioning another bright spot. Randy Eastwood served admirably as the GOP's sacrificial lamb against Congressman Jay Inslee last year. Yesterday he demolished his opponent in his race for Kenmore City Council. I suspect that's not the last we'll hear from him. Congrats, Randy.

(Cross posted at The Flag of the World.)

(Confused by the title? Read this.)