Thurston County Sheriff Derek Sanders will face his own detective in the Nov. 3 general election after cruising to a 39-point victory in the Aug. 4 primary.
Sanders collected 21,386 votes, or 69.5%, to challenger Kevin Burton-Crow's 9,287 votes, or 30.2%, according to unofficial results released the night of Aug. 4 by the Thurston County Auditor's Office.
Because only two candidates filed for the partisan seat, both advance to the general election under Washington's top-two primary system regardless of the margin.
The results reflect ballots counted through Monday, Aug. 3. The Auditor's Office did not scan ballots on Election Day itself, instead staffing the county's two voter centers. Updated tallies will be posted daily until the county certifies results on Aug. 18; the Secretary of State will certify by Aug. 21. Turnout stood at 14.72%.
Both candidates spent election night participating in National Night Out rather than hosting watch parties.
What's at stake
The Sheriff's Office polices unincorporated Thurston County and operates the Tumwater jail on a roughly $67 million annual budget. A Sanders win in November would give him a second four-year term starting in 2027.
Sanders, an independent first elected in 2022, has overseen a staffing surge during his first term. The office grew from 33 patrol deputies and eight detectives in 2023 to 55 patrol deputies and 18 detectives by February 2026.
He championed a voter-approved 0.2% public safety sales tax that funded those hires and a new 56,000-square-foot headquarters at 1111 Israel Road SW in Tumwater, which held its ribbon-cutting on July 31. The $20 million project came in under budget, according to The Olympian.
Sanders has also pushed for a mental health wing at the Thurston County Corrections Facility. In a July 22 interview with The JOLT, he called the overcrowding situation a "jail crisis" and described a proposed secured area that would be operated by mental health professionals rather than corrections deputies.
The challenger's path
Burton-Crow, a Democrat, is a special victims detective in Sanders' own department and president of the Thurston County Deputy Sheriff's Association. A 20-year Army veteran with master's degrees in criminal justice and public administration, he was named American Legion Law Enforcement Officer of the Year in 2023.
His campaign centers on pursuing professional accreditation for the Sheriff's Office, stronger deputy training and what he calls fiscal accountability. Burton-Crow told The Olympian on election night that he plans to keep knocking doors heading into November, saying he wants to build on the momentum from the primary.
He characterized his pitch to voters as offering leadership with an "appropriate temperament" that does not ask for "blind faith."
What's next
The general election is Nov. 3. Voters in unincorporated Thurston County, where the Sheriff's Office has primary jurisdiction, will choose between the two candidates.
