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.