Lisa Herbold, Shannon Braddock separated by only six votes in Seattle’s District #1

Talk about a razor-thin race: In the con­test for Seat­tle City Coun­cil, Dis­trict #1, Top Two final­ists Lisa Her­bold and Shan­non Brad­dock are now sep­a­rat­ed by a mere six votes — out of over twen­ty-two thou­sand cast! That’s a mar­gin of one house­hold.

Take a look at the num­bers fol­low­ing the lat­est tabulation:

City of Seat­tle Coun­cil Dis­trict No. 1
(Precincts ( 151/ 151 )
Lisa Her­bold: 49.70% (11,522)
Shan­non Brad­dock: 49.73% (11,528 votes)
Write-in: 0.57% (133 votes)

The trend in the late bal­lots has been for Her­bold, so there’s a good chance she over­takes Brad­dock tomor­row. But there sim­ply aren’t all that many bal­lots left to count now, one week after Elec­tion Day, and this race may go to a recount.

Her­bold and Brad­dock both have a sig­nif­i­cant degree of leg­isla­tive expe­ri­ence, and each ran a strong cam­paign. Her­bold has worked for Seat­tle City Coun­cilmem­ber Nick Lica­ta for many years; Brad­dock has worked for King Coun­ty Coun­cilmem­ber Joe McDer­mott. Both are respect­ed and well liked in West Seattle.

“Ago­niz­ing!” wrote for­mer Seat­tle May­or Greg Nick­els, in a Face­book post­ing com­ment­ing on the tight race. He reflect­ed: “I was in a cou­ple of cliffhang­ers. I emerged vic­to­ri­ous a week after elec­tion day in 2001 over Mark Sidran and the oth­er came up a bit short in 1997 to Char­lie Chong. No idea how this one will turn out but I am very appre­cia­tive that these two strong women ran effec­tive cam­paigns, gave it every­thing they have and how­ev­er it turns out Shan­non Brad­dock and Lisa Her­bold should be very proud of their efforts.”

This was a close race on Elec­tion Night and it has remained so. Brad­dock did build a more com­fort­able lead on the sec­ond day of count­ing, but that has sim­ply evap­o­rat­ed. Take a look at how the results have evolved:

The next count will be released in forty-eight hours, owing to tomor­row being Vet­er­ans Day. Both the Her­bold and Brad­dock cam­paigns will no doubt be chas­ing bal­lots over the next two weeks, look­ing to ensure their sup­port­ers’ votes are count­ed ahead of cer­ti­fi­ca­tion on Novem­ber 24th.