Cary Moon concedes Seattle mayoral race to Jenny Durkan after Wednesday’s ballot drop

Seat­tle may­oral hope­ful Cary Moon end­ed her cam­paign this after­noon, acknowl­edg­ing that she’s too far behind Jen­ny Durkan to catch up in late bal­lots. In a mes­sage to her sup­port­ers which she copied to the media, she con­grat­u­lat­ed Durkan and expressed grat­i­tude to every­one who helped her.

Here is her state­ment in full:

I ran for May­or because I felt an immense duty and respon­si­bil­i­ty to ensure Seat­tle — our beau­ti­ful, vibrant, diverse city — works for everyone.

While the elec­tion results will prob­a­bly con­tin­ue to tight­en, the out­come is unlike­ly to be what we hoped. We should not let that dis­cour­age us. Despite being out­spent 3:1, we ran a strong, trans­par­ent, and hon­est cam­paign about vision and solu­tions. We drove the con­ver­sa­tion around hous­ing afford­abil­i­ty, real estate spec­u­la­tion, munic­i­pal broad­band, and wealth inequality.

l have offered my con­grat­u­la­tions to Jen­ny Durkan, Seattle’s first woman may­or in nine­ty years.

I urge her to bold­ly con­front the chal­lenges fac­ing our city and to remem­ber that Seat­tle’s pros­per­i­ty should pro­vide shared oppor­tu­ni­ty and suc­cess for every­one, not just the wealthy few.

To our sup­port­ers who may feel dis­ap­point­ed, I feel dis­ap­point­ed too. But I will not let the future of our city be sunk by sta­tus quo think­ing and pol­i­tics as usu­al. There is too much at stake.

That is why I ask you to join me in mak­ing sure the promis­es made dur­ing this cam­paign are actu­al­ized. We must ensure our home­less neigh­bors can move back inside, that peo­ple of all income lev­els have a place in our city, and that our elect­ed lead­ers share pow­er across race, gen­der, and class in our government.

Thank you for all you have done for this cam­paign. We all belong here, and deserve a voice in shap­ing our city’s future. I know you won’t stop fight­ing for what you believe is right, and I won’t stop fight­ing either.

Sin­cere­ly,
Cary Moon

Moon has 39.13% of the vote as of today’s count, up from 38.89% yes­ter­day.  47,633 votes have been count­ed in sup­port of her candidacy.

For­mer Unit­ed States Attor­ney and May­or-elect Jen­ny Durkan has 72,617.

“I want to con­grat­u­late Cary Moon on the strong race that she’s run and the ideas she brought to the table,” said Durkan said in response to Moon’s statement.

“In near­ly one hun­dred debates and forums, I saw first­hand her love for our city and her com­mit­ment to com­pas­sion­ate­ly address the tough­est chal­lenges fac­ing Seat­tle. I have no doubt that Cary will remain active in our city and con­tin­ue to con­tribute to its vibrant future.”

“I am hon­ored that the vot­ers have giv­en me this great oppor­tu­ni­ty, but with the hon­or comes a deep respon­si­bil­i­ty,” Durkan continued.

“The hard work of deliv­er­ing progress starts today. Our city will — and must — come togeth­er around the solu­tions to address the urgent issues fac­ing our city from home­less­ness to afford­abil­i­ty to address­ing sys­temic inequities.”

“Over the next few weeks, I look for­ward to work­ing close­ly with May­or Burgess and the City Coun­cil as well as city offi­cials and work­ers to ensure a smooth transition.”

Because of Ed Mur­ray’s res­ig­na­tion, Durkan will be tak­ing over as May­or of Seat­tle on Novem­ber 28th instead of Jan­u­ary 1st, 2018.

That means she will have less than half the amount of time an incom­ing may­or cho­sen by the vot­ers would nor­mal­ly have to plan an inau­gu­ra­tion and pre­pare to assume the duties of the office. The lop­sided vote in her favor will make the tran­si­tion eas­i­er, but a lot must still be accom­plished in a short timeframe.