A two-day hand recount of the 42nd Legislative District State Senate primary has ended with the same result as the original machine count: Michael Alvarez Shepard finished second by a margin of four votes over Eamonn Collins, according to the Whatcom County Auditor's Office. Shepard and top finisher Erika Creydt will advance to the November general election.
The Certified Results
The official certified totals for the 42nd Legislative District State Senator primary are as follows: Erika Creydt received 22,125 votes; Michael Alvarez Shepard received 13,125 votes; Eamonn Collins received 13,121 votes; Ryan Bowman received 1,248 votes. There were 35 write-in votes, 15 overvotes, and 782 undervotes, for a total of 50,451 ballots counted across the district.
To put those numbers in context, the four-vote gap between Shepard and Collins represents a margin of roughly 0.008 percent of total ballots cast. In a district with more than 50,000 voters participating, that is a statistical near-tie by any practical measure. Creydt's first-place finish was not in doubt, with her 22,125 votes standing well clear of both second-place contenders. The real drama of this primary played out entirely in the race for that second advance slot, with a separation so small that it would fit comfortably inside a single precinct's margin of counting error under normal circumstances.
The four-vote gap between Shepard and Collins triggered a mandatory hand recount under Washington state law. According to the Washington Secretary of State's Office, hand recounts are required when two candidates are separated by fewer than 150 votes and that difference represents less than 0.25 percent of total ballots cast. Both thresholds were easily met here. The recount was conducted at the Election Center in the basement of the Whatcom County Courthouse at 311 Grand Avenue in Bellingham, and was open to public observation throughout the two-day process.
The recount itself proceeded without controversy. Election staff worked through the full pool of 50,451 ballots by hand, with representatives from both the Shepard and Collins campaigns present to observe the count. When the final tally was complete, the numbers matched the machine tabulation exactly: Shepard at 13,125 and Collins at 13,121, a four-vote separation unchanged from the original count. That outcome is consistent with Washington's broader record of accurate automated ballot tabulation, which has generally shown extremely close agreement between machine counts and subsequent hand verifications in recounts conducted over the past decade.
What Comes Next
The Whatcom County Canvassing Board will formally certify the recount results at 9 a.m. on Monday, August 31, 2026. The certification meeting will be held at the Election Center, Suite B3, at 311 Grand Avenue in Bellingham and is open to the public. Certification is generally a brief procedural step in which the three-member board, which consists of the county auditor, the county prosecutor, and one additional county official, formally adopts the recount totals as the official record of the election.
With Shepard's second-place finish confirmed, the general election matchup is set. Shepard, a Democrat who serves as a Port of Bellingham Commissioner and teaches at Western Washington University, will face Republican Erika Creydt on November 3. The seat became open after Senator Sharon Shewmake announced her retirement in December 2025, creating the first open-seat race in this district in several election cycles.
The 42nd Legislative District covers much of Whatcom County's urban core, including Bellingham and surrounding areas. Shepard noted during recount observation that the district has a history of competitive races, describing it as one of the last true swing districts in Western Washington. That characterization is supported by the primary results: three candidates split the non-Creydt vote in ways that kept the second-place finish genuinely in doubt until the recount confirmed the outcome. The closeness of the primary, with a four-vote margin out of more than 50,000 ballots cast, underscores the district's competitive nature heading into fall and signals that November's general election between Shepard and Creydt could be similarly tight.
Collins, an educator at Lummi Nation High School, fell short of advancing despite a strong showing. His 13,121 votes placed him less than one-tenth of a percentage point behind Shepard's total. Collins's campaign mobilized considerable support given that he was a first-time candidate for state office, and the closeness of his finish suggests he built a meaningful coalition in the district. The recount, which was conducted entirely by hand and matched the machine tabulation exactly, provided a high-confidence result for both campaigns and election observers, and Collins has not indicated any plans to challenge the outcome further.
Background on the Recount Process
Recounts in Washington are rare at this scale, and the 42nd District primary drew significant attention as a test of the county's election infrastructure. The Whatcom County Auditor's Election Division oversaw the process with representatives from both campaigns present throughout. Hand recounts involve physically counting every ballot in the contest, sorting them by candidate and verifying each stack, a process that took roughly two full days for a race with more than 50,000 total votes. Election workers typically organize ballots into batches, count each batch independently, and reconcile discrepancies before finalizing totals.
The fact that the hand count and machine count matched exactly is consistent with Washington's track record of accurate automated ballot tabulation. Modern optical scan equipment used in Washington counties reads ballots with a high degree of precision, and the state's post-election audit process is designed to catch discrepancies before certification. A perfect match between the machine count and a full hand recount of a 50,000-ballot race reinforces confidence in the system at a moment when election integrity concerns are frequently raised in public discourse.
For questions about the recount or certification process, residents can contact the Whatcom County Auditor's Office Election Division at 360-778-5102 or by email at elections@whatcomcounty.us, or visit Suite 103 at 311 Grand Avenue in Bellingham.
More background on the razor-thin primary margin and what is at stake in November is available in earlier coverage of how the race reached this point.
