This after­noon, a major shift occurred in one of the close city coun­cil races that we’ve been watch­ing over the last few days. After hav­ing trailed oppo­nent Robin McClel­land for near­ly a week, young pro­gres­sive Jesse Salomon today took a twen­ty-two vote lead in the con­test for Shore­line City Coun­cil Posi­tion #6.

Salomon, who works as a pub­lic defend­er in Seat­tle Munic­i­pal Court, was sup­port­ed in his cam­paign for Shore­line City Coun­cil by the King Coun­ty Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty and a num­ber of pro­gres­sive orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing the M.L. King Coun­ty Labor Coun­cil, Wash­ing­ton Con­ser­va­tion Vot­ers, and the Sier­ra Club.

McClle­land, six­ty-eight, is also a Demo­c­rat, and received the sup­port of the Cas­cade Bicy­cle Club and the Nation­al Wom­en’s Polit­i­cal Cau­cus of Washington.

Here is where the race stands now after today’s update:

Jesse Salomon: 49.93% (6,876 votes)
Robin McClel­land: 49.77% (6,854 votes)

Salomon’s come­back is rather impres­sive, con­sid­er­ing where he stood only a week ago. On elec­tion night, he was man­ag­ing only 46.65% of the vote, to McClel­land’s 53.02%. By Thurs­day, Salomon had nar­rowed the gap, but was still behind by three hun­dred and six­ty-five votes. Now, he’s ahead by twenty-two.

If the trend con­tin­ues tomor­row, he’ll be able to put more dis­tance in between him­self and McClel­land. King Coun­ty is start­ing to run out of bal­lots to process, how­ev­er, and it’s pos­si­ble that the race will remain in recount ter­ri­to­ry when the time comes to cer­ti­fy the election.

About the author

Andrew Villeneuve is the founder and executive director of the Northwest Progressive Institute, as well as the founder of NPI's sibling, the Northwest Progressive Foundation. He has worked to advance progressive causes for over two decades as a strategist, speaker, author, and organizer. Andrew is also a cybersecurity expert, a veteran facilitator, a delegate to the Washington State Democratic Central Committee, and a member of the Climate Reality Leadership Corps.

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