Former Bainbridge councilwoman topples last Republican legislator in Kitsap Co.

Before election night was done, and long before all the votes were cast, Christine Rolfes was hit with a flood of phone calls and emails.

“It started at 11 p.m. with people congratulating me and wanting me to have meetings with them,” she said Wednesday. “They started calling again today at 8 a.m. when I was still in my pajamas.”

School districts, colleges, state transportation planning agencies – they all wanted an early crack at pitching their needs to the 23rd Legislative District’s newest representative.

Rolfes, a Bainbridge Democrat, stunned incumbent Republican Beverly Woods with a sizable defeat.

The former Bainbridge city councilwoman and mother of two drew 55 percent of the vote.

“About six weeks ago we probably would have bet (Woods) would win with 58 percent,” said Matthew Cleverley, chairman of the Kitsap County Republican Party.

“In the end, I think she got caught in the national trend, with people dissatisfied with the establishment and looking for changes, he said. “I think people started at the top of the ticket and worked their way down. (Woods) got caught in the middle of it.”

Woods said she was snared by national trends, swamped with opposition money and hit hard by postmarked lies.

“The Democrats spent about $460,000 to defeat me,” she said. “The outspent me three-to-one. They had 12 or 13 hit pieces mailed out against me that had a lot of misinformation and outright lies.”

Rolfes said she was “very surprised” by her margin of victory. She, too, cited the national upswell in Democratic support but stressed the importance of shoe leather and knuckle callous during her campaign.

“I’ve been out since April walking neighborhoods, knocking on doors and talking to community groups,” she said. “I worked really hard.”

Having a stable base of over 100 volunteers and a large war chest also helped.

Rolfes raised almost $170,000 in cash donations. Much of her financial backing came from party organizations and individual donors. Woods managed to raise just over $125,000, largely from private companies and political action committees.

Rolfes said she’ll put schools, health care and a strong economy at the core of her efforts in the state Legislature.

But common Democratic party refrains often translate into “increased taxes, regulations and government domination over every aspect of your life,” said Cleverley.

Woods believes her election loss, and the scouring of all Kitsap Republicans from the state Legislature, will make for impoverished discourse in Olympia.

“It’s a disadvantage for the people of Kitsap County,” she said. “You now have only one opinion in Olympia. It’s now so lopsided. “No discussion, no differing opinions.”

A Republican taking the district’s seat back from a Democrat is very unlikely, Woods said, citing her party’s election day loss of a South Kitsap area Senate seat and a position on the county commission.

Government homogeneity could spark a Republican resurgence, said Cleverley.

“People are ready for good, true conservative lawmakers,” he said. “People will tire of (the Democrat’s) ideology and swing back to common sense.”

Rolfes isn’t thinking that far ahead quite yet. She’s buckling down for a lot of homework before the start of the 2007 legislative session.

She doesn’t have any proposed legislation in mind yet, but hopes “reading a lot of bills, reports and researching issues” will bring her up-to-speed before she takes to the House floor in January.