GRANT COUNTY — While national election results remained clouded Tuesday night, local legislative races were clear: incumbent Republicans handily defeated their Democratic challengers Tuesday.

In the 13th Legislative District, which contains all of Kittitas and Lincoln counties, most of Grant County and a small portion of Yakima County, incumbent Rep. Tom Dent, R-Moses Lake, led his opponent, Democrat Eduardo Castaneda-Diaz, by nearly 40 points, an even larger margin than is typical for Republicans in the reliably red district. At last count Tuesday night, the vote total was 32,559 for Dent and 13,980 for Castaneda-Diaz.

Castaneda-Diaz had focused his campaign on immigrant rights issues, frequently criticizing Dent for pushing, he claimed, to loosen pandemic-related regulations on migrant worker housing and organizing rallies in support of migrant workers. The strategy didn’t appear to pan out – Castaneda-Diaz, a 27-year-old political newcomer, acknowledged that he underperformed the campaign’s goal of narrowing the margin to 20 points, which would have been a historically good showing for a Democratic candidate in the region.

Though he missed that goal, he maintained Tuesday that he was proud of the race he ran, saying that he wanted to run this year in order to inspire other candidates to run for election and to make sure his opponent didn’t run unopposed.

“It was an uphill battle, we knew that from the beginning,” Castaneda-Diaz said in an interview. “We respectfully accept the results of the election, and we will humbly return to fight another day.”

It might not be long before Castaneda-Diaz returns to a local ballot in Grant County, either. On Tuesday night, Castaneda-Diaz announced his intention to run for city council or mayor in Quincy in the next election. He added that he will be going back to law school in order to become an attorney.

Dent, who announced last week that he was recovering at home after being hospitalized with COVID-19, did not respond to a request for a response Tuesday.

In the 12th Legislative District, incumbent Rep. Keith Goehner, R-Dryden, led his opponent, Democrat Adrianne Moore, by nearly 30 points. At last count Tuesday night, the vote total was 34,445 for Goehner and 23,277 for Moore.

In Legislative District 9, incumbent Sen. Mark Schoesler led by a wide margin over the contender, Jenn Goulet: 66 percent to 33 percent of the ballot tally Tuesday.

Though Grant County election officials said Tuesday night that more ballots remained to be counted, it’s unclear how many there are. However, both the incumbents in both legislative seats led their races by comfortable margins.

Emry Dinman can be reached via email at edinman@columbiabasinherald.com.