While there has been plen­ty of media cov­er­age sur­round­ing SeaT­ac Propo­si­tion #1 (the Good Jobs ini­tia­tive) and the con­test between Kshama Sawant and Richard Con­lin for Seat­tle City Coun­cil, there’s anoth­er very close race of sig­nif­i­cance that has­n’t received as much atten­tion: Belle­vue City Coun­cil Posi­tion 4.

The con­test pits Demo­c­rat Steve Kas­ner, an activist, against Repub­li­can Kevin Wal­lace, a devel­op­er. Wal­lace start­ed off ahead on Elec­tion Night and has remained in first place through­out the vote-count­ing, but his lead is shrinking.

On Tues­day, Wal­lace had 51.20% of the vote and a three hun­dred and eighty-two vote lead. As of tonight, his lead has been cut down to two hun­dred and twen­ty-two, and his share of the vote is only 50.37%.

Kas­ner won 54.43% of the bal­lots that were added to the tal­ly this evening, which is impres­sive. Now the ques­tion is, will the trend continue?

And even if it does, will Kas­ner be able to catch Wal­lace? He needs to have a good day on Tues­day if he is to over­take Wal­lace. King Coun­ty Elec­tions reports it has received 33,971 bal­lots back from Belle­vue res­i­dents as of today. Of these, 33,108 have been either count­ed or are ready for count­ing (mean­ing they’ve under­gone sig­na­ture ver­i­fi­ca­tion). So there are a few more bal­lots to be processed.

It’s sig­nif­i­cant that Kas­ner went from being four hun­dred and nine votes down to two hun­dred and twen­ty-two votes down in one day. He has cer­tain­ly nar­rowed the gap. But he’s run­ning out of time to close it. We’ll see if he does.

For now, this is one race that is too close to call.

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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