Rep Keith Goehner To Run For State Senate Seat Vacated By Hawkins

Twelfth District State Representative Keith Goehner of Dryden is now running for the 12th District Senate seat. 

He announced his candidacy Tuesday for the position being vacated by Brad Hawkins. 

Goehner says he's been in contact with fellow 12th District Representative Mike Steele over who should run for the Senate. 

"We do feel like it's important to have an experienced voice in the Senate to adequately represent the district and all the new issues and the new areas," said Goehner. 

Hawkins, Steel, and Goehner are all Republicans. 

At this point, Goehner is facing one Democrat for the Senate seat, Jim Mayhew of Snoqualmie. 

Mayhew filed last week with the Washington Public Disclosure Commission to run for the office.  

Hawkins announced on Monday that he was withdrawing from the race and would instead seek a seat on the Chelan County Commission.   

He said his decision was partially based on changes to the 12th district map, which came when a ruling from a federal judge changed the political boundaries across the region. 

About half of the reconfigured 12th district is still east of the Cascades while the other half includes large portions of Snohomish and King counties. 

Mayhew, the Democrat, was drawn to new boundaries. 

Goehner says it's not known whether the reconfigured district will significantly increase the Democratic vote. 

"There are some changes as far as the people, but we don't really have a number of recent elections to really drill down to those specific areas," Goehner. "We haven't taken the time to see, well how did they vote?" 

According to Dave's Redistricting, the 12th District was 51 percent Republican to 47.4 percent Democratic between 2016 and 2022. 

Goehner is now in his third term in the Statehouse. 

He is the lead Republican on the House Local Government Committee and also serves on the Environment and Energy, and Transportation committees.  

In addition, he served as a Chelan County commissioner from 2003 until he was elected to the state House in 2018. 

Goehner is also a longtime tree fruit orchardist based in Dryden.