If change was the big theme on the national political stage, that doesn’t appear to have been the case locally.

According to the most recent numbers posted by King and Snohomish county election officials, incumbents representing the Bothell and Kenmore areas from the U.S. Congress to the state house in Olympia all easily were gaining re-election.

• At the national level, King County voters are returning Democratic U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee to his First Congressional District seat by a margin of 47,997, or 71.16 percent, compared to challenger Larry Ishmael’s 19,423, or 28.80 percent.

Those numbers were posted by King County Nov. 6.

The First Congressional District also includes portions of Snohomish County, where Inslee also was easily ahead, with 67,602 ballots, or 68.67 percent to Ishmael’s 30,696, 31.18 percent.

Inslee was not immediately available for comment, but during the campaign, he made the economy and his proposed alternative energy initiative the keystones of his re-election efforts. Inslee voted against the multi-billion dollar bail-out package aimed at sinking banks and financial institutions, saying it did little to address underlying problems.

As for his New Apollo Energy Program, Inslee believe alternative or green energy industries can help push the country’s economic recovery.

“We can be the arsenal of clean energy for the world,” Inslee said.

Ishmael was making his second try to unseat Inslee.

• Closer to home, Democratic State Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe should be returning to the District 1 seat she has held since 1992. McAuliffe also was unavailable for comment, but education was at the heart of her recent campaign. Chair of the state senate’s education committee, McAuliffe said Washington needs to redefine what it means by basic education. Toward that end, she launched a Basic Education Task Force, charged with spelling out educational issues and solving funding problems. A final report is due next month.

According to King County election numbers, McAuliffe was leading Republican challenger Dennis Richter by a count of 3,736 votes, or 62.52 percent, to 2,237, 37.43 percent. In Snohomish, McAuliffe was ahead 19,119 to 12,651, or 60.10 percent to 39.77 percent.

In District 32, Position 1 Democratic State Rep. Maralyn Chase is earning her third term. In King County, the numbers had Chase well ahead of Republican challenger Alex Rion, 18,572 to 7,464, or 71.26 percent to 28.64 percent.

Snohomish voters also were favoring Chase, 4,646 to 2,263, 67.16 percent to 32.71 percent.

“I took his challenge very seriously and we ran a hard race,” Chase said.

Still, she was confident of victory. According to Chase, Rion lived in Michigan until six months ago. She said he was part of a state-wide move by the Libertarian Party to run candidates as Republicans, hoping to unseat Democrats they felt might be weak and using the elections as a platform to spread their message.

Upon returning to Olympia, Chase feels legislators need to address the economy, possibly moving to a regional approach, for example looking at north King County or south Snohomish County and developing those spots as unique metropolitan areas.

• As for Proposition 1 (mass-transit expansion), it received approval by 61.32 percent of King County voters. The vote tally as of Nov. 6 was 247,292 for and 156,001 against. In Snohomish County, 55.14 percent (or 58,578 votes) of the voters approved the proposition as opposed to 44.86 percent (or 47,651).

• Even as they supported their local incumbents, King and Snohomish county voters followed the majority of the rest of the country in helping put the first African-American in the White House.

In King County, Barack Obama was earning 71.26 percent of the vote compared to John McCain’s 27.16 percent. In Snohomish, the numbers were 60.37 percent in favor of Obama, with McCain earning 37.51 percent. Voter turnouts in both counties were high, with some 45.35 percent of registered voters in King County casting ballots. In Snohomish County, the numbers were even larger, with about 52.07 percent of registered voters sending in ballots.