The election wave for Democrats is off to a strong start in Grays Harbor County after early results Tuesday, Aug. 7.

The only clear Republican leader in a contested race is Joe MacLean, who currently enjoys a plurality of votes in his race for county auditor with two Democrats. In that race, Chris Thomas has an 80-vote lead on Jasmine Dickhoff. Combined, the Democrats have more than 56 percent of the vote to MacLean’s more than 43 percent.

As expected, Democratic incumbent Maria Cantwell will advance to the general election to face Republican Susan Hutchison, who was the chairwoman of the state Republican Party, for U.S. Senate.

State Rep. Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen, is trailing Democratic challenger Erin Frasier by 125 votes of the 5,741 cast.

The Elma police services levy is passing with 67.7 percent of the vote. An Ocean Shores sales and use tax to fund transportation improvements has 52 percent yes votes. And the South Beach Regional Fire Authority maintenance and operations levy has 61 percent approval.

The Auditor’s Office says 12,734 ballots of the 42,317 sent out have been counted.

Find all the results from Tuesday night’s election here: http://results.vote.wa.gov/results/current/graysharbor.