The storyline for the primary election sounded familiar: When King County voters turn out, those voters will decide elections in this state.

Statewide, the turnout was 33 percent, with 30 percent in Pierce County, 29 percent in Snohomish and 34 percent in King, with the latter’s bigger base underscoring the higher percentage. Republicans will win almost every other county in Washington, but unless they find a way to cut the margin in King County, Democrats could sweep all but one statewide elected office race this year.

Two cases highlight the Republicans’ problem: In the race for governor, Republican Bill Bryant won every county in eastern Washington and was down by only 1 percent in Pierce County and by 6 percent in Snohomish County. But Democratic incumbent Gov. Jay Inslee was approaching 64 percent to Bryant’s 27 percent in King County, giving Inslee an 11 percent lead overall.

The other illustrative race is for Secretary of State, where popular Republican incumbent Kim Wyman is leading her Democratic challenger, former Seattle City Council member Tina Podlodowski, by two points statewide: 48 to 46 percent. Wyman won Snohomish County by 6 percent and won Pierce County by 12 percent, but she lost King County by a 60 to 38 percent margin.

A Seattle address has an impact.

In most contests, the combined Democratic vote was above 50 percent, further adding to the Republicans’ November dilemma. In the race for State Auditor, Federal Way Republican state Sen. Mark Miloscia is leading with 37 percent, followed by Democratic Piece County Executive Pat McCarthy at 30 percent and Seattle attorney Jeff Sprung at 24 percent. But the combined King County Democratic vote, 54 percent, actually makes McCarthy the front-runner going in to the fall.

Republican Steve McLaughlin will be in the final for Commissioner of Public Lands after he garnered 38 percent of the statewide vote. But Democrat Hillary Franz will be the front-runner: she beat McLaughlin 35 to 22 percent in King County, and more importantly the total Democratic vote was over 53 percent. Franz will get all of that while McLaughlin won’t really have much room to expand his vote total.

The lone exception to a possible Democratic sweep is in the State Treasurer race. Even though Democrats out-polled Republicans at 51 percent, they split the result three ways. In a huge surprise, Republicans split their votes only two ways, and both of the Republican candidates will advance to the general election.

There is a chance for Republicans to avoid drowning in a big blue wave, but that hinges on several factors. They have to hope Donald Trump’s sinking numbers don’t keep Republicans from voting.

Additionally, while they’ll continue to win all of eastern Washington, they’ll need to have a stronger showing in Snohomish and Pierce counties while reducing the Democratic margin of victory in King County by several points. Otherwise, the only statewide office they may hold in January is Treasurer, which would be a hard race to lose with two Republicans as the only candidates.

This storyline has a big impact here in Federal Way. Our two Republican incumbent state representatives, Linda Kochmar and Teri Hickel, are both locked in very close races that could go either way. Hickel and her opponent, Democrat Kristine Reeves, were running even with each other; Kochmar was trailing her Democratic opponent, Mike Pellicciotti, by a 48 to 52 percent margin.

Reeves and Pellicciotti needed to work hard and have a good showing, as neither candidate is well-known to the average voter.

Had their totals been in the low 40 percent range, donations would have dried up. But doorbelling, newspaper ads and some well-timed mailers from the challengers regarding the incumbents’ voting records made a difference. Kochmar and Hickel had less pressure on them as incumbents, and both know their financial supporters will be there in the fall. Still, the two tight races have put Republicans on notice that they’ll need to defend two more seats than they planned if they want to gain control of the Washington House of Representatives.

In other races, Democrats again split their votes and will send state Sen. Cyrus Habib to the November finals in the Lieutenant Governor race. Habib will be joined by Republican Marty McClendon.

But if either of the other Democratic state senators, Steve Hobbs or Karen Fraser, had not run, there would have been two Democrats in the general election, not one. In addition to losing King County by 25 percent, McClendon lost his home county, Pierce, by 3 percent.

The most interesting race may be for the non-partisan Superintendent of Public Instruction. Chris Reykdal won Pierce County by 4 percent and Snohomish County by 8 percent, but he lost by 20 percent to Erin Jones in King County.

Reykdal is a Democratic state legislator but is not as well-known in King County as Jones, who previously worked in Federal Way and has the support of several well-known local educators. Jones got many votes that could have gone to Reykdal, so watch the debates on charter schools and school funding to see where Republicans and independents line up to vote.

Those two issues lead to a subplot in the State Supreme Court races, where the Republican strategy was to try and defeat some of the incumbent justices to force a different outcome in a Legislature split on school funding. That didn’t work in the primary, and Chief Justice Barbara Madsen won big.

Now that everyone knows their score, and now that those behind know how much ground they have to make up, the gloves will come off. It will not be pretty, particularly in several of the legislative races.

Federal Way resident Bob Roegner is the former mayor of Auburn. He can be reached at bjroegner@comcast.net.