John Stokes gets a little more breathing room in extremely close Bellevue City Council race

After watch­ing his slim lead over oppo­nent Aaron Laing grow even slim­mer for sev­er­al days in a row, pro­gres­sive activist John Stokes is final­ly rebounding.

The con­test between Stokes and Laing (who is backed by Kem­per Free­man, Jr.) to suc­ceed Grant Deg­gin­ger has cap­tured the region’s atten­tion due to its closeness.

Stokes’ lead increased by twen­ty-nine votes in today’s count, going from fifty-nine to eighty-eight. That’s not as wide as it was at one point last week (or even on elec­tion night) but as far as his cam­paign team is con­cerned, it’s cer­tain­ly progress.

Stokes’ per­cent­age of the vote now stands at an even fifty, while Laing’s per­cent­age dimin­ished slight­ly to 49.70%. Odd­ly enough, the num­ber of write-ins for Posi­tion #1 (0.25%) is exact­ly equal to Stokes’ lead… eighty-eight.

King Coun­ty Elec­tions will release updat­ed counts four more times before Novem­ber 29th, when the can­vass­ing board will con­vene to cer­ti­fy results. Final results will be post­ed on Novem­ber 30th — how­ev­er, results for this race are unlike­ly to be final, because it’s prob­a­ble that the mar­gin of vic­to­ry for who­ev­er wins will be so small that an auto­mat­ic recount will be triggered.

So it’s unlike­ly that we will know who has won for sure until well into December.

The results of Belle­vue’s oth­er city coun­cil races are not in doubt, and will become final on Novem­ber 30th. Incum­bent Jen­nifer Robert­son ran unop­posed, and has been reelect­ed, while incum­bents Clau­dia Bal­duc­ci and John Chelmi­nak (who each drew one chal­lenger) won in a landslide.