NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate provides the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Tuesday, November 7th, 2017

Cary Moon reacts to disappointing early results in Seattle, hopes for surprises to come

The cam­paign of Seat­tle may­oral hope­ful Cary Moon chose the (new) Old Stove Brew­ing Mar­ket­place on West­ern Avenue for its elec­tion night event.

For all it has going for it in craft beer and pret­zels, hav­ing the Seat­tle Great Wheel as a back­drop for tele­vi­sion live shots and pho­tographs is a fine rea­son to pick the Old Stove over a club in Cap Hill as results come in. But the Moon cam­paign is mak­ing sure every­one has low expec­ta­tions for the first bal­lot drop.

In the words of Moon’s team: “With low turnout pro­jec­tions and the high num­ber of late vot­ers, we’ll be hap­py to be with­in ten points of Durkan with this first drop. So we’ll be hap­py with 45% and above.”

In an ear­li­er state­ment, the Moon cam­paign sug­gest­ed Durkan could lose what­ev­er lead she starts out with by the end of the count. That’s what hap­pened to Richard Con­lin in 2013, who start­ed strong and fad­ed as as late bal­lots were count­ed while oppo­nent Kshama Sawant surged to vic­to­ry. Moon’s cam­paign is hop­ing to ride a sim­i­lar wave of late bal­lots that breaks strong­ly in their favor.

“We expect tonight’s counts will show Moon behind Durkan, and then will tight­en up over the days ahead. As today’s Seat­tle Times notes, elec­tion night counts are often dom­i­nat­ed by old­er, more con­ser­v­a­tive vot­ers and sub­se­quent counts trend towards younger, more lib­er­al vot­ers. We’ve seen up to 10-point gains between elec­tion night and final cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in Seat­tle (Sawant gained 7 points to beat Con­lin in 2013; McGinn gained 10 points to come with 3.5 points of Mur­ray that same year). And even Durkan’s sup­port­ers say they want a 6‑point lead tonight.”

Now that the par­ty’s offi­cial start time has passed, the room is fill­ing up as more reporters arrive and set up their equip­ment, while sup­port­ers cel­e­brate weeks and months of work by enjoy­ing pret­zels, craft beer, and a nice view.

8:15 PM UPDATE: The first num­bers are in and it looks like a blowout for Jen­ny Durkan. The Moon cam­paign said they’d be hap­py start­ing out with a floor of 45% of the vote or more, so they can’t be happy.

Peo­ple are start­ing to notice the first results, and it’s got­ten a bit qui­eter as folk turn toward the tele­vi­sions above the bar and check their phones.

9 PM UPDATE: “We’re up against real­ly tough odds,” Moon not­ed as she sized up the elec­tion results, observ­ing that oppo­nent Jen­ny Durkan broke records out­spend­ing the Moon cam­paign by three to one, name-drop­ping some of the cor­po­ra­tions that donat­ed to Durkan or spent mon­ey on her behalf.

“Bal­lot counts may swing — will swing — in our direc­tion in the next sev­er­al days,” she said. But there’s no deny­ing the cam­paign want­ed 45% to start… and did­n’t get it. They’re in a huge hole and mass media are already declar­ing Jen­ny Durkan Seat­tle’s next may­or. Nev­er­the­less, Moon’s not ready to con­cede just yet.

“Seat­tle vot­ers may sur­prise every­one,” Moon said as she wrapped up her speech. “Thank you all so much, and let’s cel­e­brate together.”

Moon fin­ished to cheers and talk among sup­port­ers about how low the turnout is so far and how tomor­row could bring bet­ter num­bers. But oth­ers already focus­ing on the encour­ag­ing results in 45th Dis­trict and nationally.

NPI’s Pacif­ic NW Por­tal has com­pre­hen­sive results for King, Pierce, and Sno­homish coun­ties in easy-to-read grid for­mat. Book­mark this indis­pens­able resource or add a short­cut to your smart­phone’s home screen for easy access.

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One Comment

  1. That seemed rather class­less on Cary’s part. I think that with even mon­ey, Jenn would win. She is very pol­ished and artic­u­late. In addi­tion, she prob­a­bly had an inside view of how a win­ning cam­paign should be run.
    I think Cary would do a great job serv­ing on the city council.
    But tak­ing shots at your oppo­nent at that stage just does­n’t look good.

    # by Mike Barer :: November 8th, 2017 at 7:50 PM
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