We are now into the sec­ond half of Novem­ber, and the num­ber of bal­lots remain­ing to be processed by coun­ty elec­tions offi­cials has now dwin­dled to 12,578 (esti­mat­ed). More than three-fourths of this num­ber are King Coun­ty ballots.

King Coun­ty Elec­tions was open for busi­ness today, and released updat­ed results this after­noon. As usu­al, some can­di­dates lost ground while oth­ers gained, but no leads were sur­ren­dered in any of the close races we’re watching.

Here’s a summary:

  • Social­ist Alter­na­tive can­di­date Kshama Sawant increased her lead over incum­bent City Coun­cilmem­ber Richard Con­lin in Seat­tle, con­tin­u­ing a trend that began Novem­ber 6th. Sawant is hold­ing a vic­to­ry ral­ly tomor­row to cel­e­brate her his­toric and unprece­dent­ed win.
  • The gap between yes and no in SeaT­ac for Propo­si­tion 1 (the Good Jobs ini­tia­tive) nar­rowed by three votes to forty-nine. There are just one hun­dred and ten bal­lots left to count in SeaTac.
  • Steve Kas­ner gave up all of the ground he had made this week in his city coun­cil con­test in Belle­vue against Kevin Wal­lace. Wal­lace is now ahead by two hun­dred and sev­en­teen votes. It does­n’t look like Kas­ner will make it.
  • In Auburn, Nan­cy Backus remains ahead of John Par­tridge in the con­test for may­or by only one hun­dred and thir­ty votes. Backus is los­ing the King Coun­ty por­tion of Auburn, but win­ning big in the Pierce Coun­ty por­tion of the city (it’s split). Con­se­quent­ly, she has a thin lead.
  • Also in Auburn, Rich Wag­n­er is ahead of Michelle Binet­ti for City Coun­cil Posi­tion #6. Like Nan­cy Backus, Wag­n­er is los­ing in the King Coun­ty part of Auburn (which con­sti­tutes most of the city) but is win­ning big in the Pierce Coun­ty por­tion. He’s ahead by just six­ty-four votes overall.
  • In Kent, Bai­ley Sto­ber remains behind Ken Sharp, who was charged with mul­ti­ple counts of first degree theft ear­li­er this year. Amaz­ing­ly, Sharp has a two hun­dred and eighty-five vote lead over Sto­ber, leav­ing us won­der­ing if Kent vot­ers just weren’t pay­ing atten­tion this year.

Bal­lot count­ing will resume on Mon­day and con­tin­ue through the 26th, when the gen­er­al elec­tion is due to be cer­ti­fied around Wash­ing­ton State.

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.

Adjacent posts

Enjoyed what you just read? Make a donation

Thank you for read­ing The Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate, the North­west Pro­gres­sive Institute’s jour­nal of world, nation­al, and local politics.

Found­ed in March of 2004, The Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate has been help­ing peo­ple through­out the Pacif­ic North­west and beyond make sense of cur­rent events with rig­or­ous analy­sis and thought-pro­vok­ing com­men­tary for more than two decades.

The Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate is fund­ed by read­ers like you and trust­ed spon­sors. We don’t accept unso­licit­ed ad buys or pub­lish con­tent in exchange for money.

Help us keep The Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate edi­to­ri­al­ly inde­pen­dent and freely avail­able to all by becom­ing a mem­ber of the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute today. Or make a dona­tion to sus­tain our essen­tial research and advo­ca­cy jour­nal­ism. Your con­tri­bu­tion will allow us to con­tin­ue bring­ing you fea­tures like Last Week In Con­gress, live cov­er­age of events like Net­roots Nation or the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion, and reviews of books and doc­u­men­tary films.

Become an NPI mem­ber Make a one-time donation