Democ­rats’ steady gains threat­en to wash away one of three remain­ing Repub­li­cans on the offi­cial­ly non­par­ti­san King Coun­ty Coun­cil, the lat­est in a series of pick­offs that have turned a once-red polit­i­cal land­scape into shades of blue.

Endan­gered is vet­er­an Repub­li­can Coun­cilmem­ber Kathy Lam­bert, who has as of this after­noon a less-than-impres­sive 41.38% of the vote with Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lenger Sarah Per­ry not far behind at 34.23%.

Demo­c­ra­t­ic Coun­ty Coun­cil hope­ful Sarah Per­ry cel­e­brates her Top Two show­ing on Elec­tion Night in Red­mond at Post­doc Brew­ing (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

While The Stranger saw an oppor­tu­ni­ty to wipe the Coun­cil clean of Repub­li­cans, two hearty peren­ni­als – Peter von Reich­bauer (R‑7th Dis­trict) and Rea­gan Dunn (R‑9th Dis­trict) – appear safe­ly on path to reelection.

King Coun­ty gov­ern­ment is low key, late­ly in the news main­ly when Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine buys up hotels to house the home­less, and with a move back to appoint­ing rather than elect­ing the King Coun­ty Sheriff.

Exec­u­tive Con­stan­tine has long plot­ted a run for Gov­er­nor, a tran­si­tion made by pre­de­ces­sor Gary Locke in 1996. But Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee has just begun his third term and shows no signs of going anywhere.

Besides, run­ning coun­ty gov­ern­ment can be a low-key job.

Jim­my Carter, on a book ped­dling tour, made a cameo appear­ance at Con­stan­ti­ne’s annu­al Fil­ing Week lun­cheon, one of many recur­ring West­in ball­room fundrais­ers, a few years back. The for­mer Pres­i­dent spoke only briefly, but found words of praise for Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Ferguson.

What has changed is the polit­i­cal make­up of King Coun­ty. It’s easy to for­get that Repub­li­cans John Spell­man and Tim Hill once held the county’s top job. Or that the state’s most pow­er­ful Repub­li­cans once came from the 41st, 45th and 48th leg­isla­tive dis­tricts. The Coun­ty Coun­cil was split, with a one-vote major­i­ty for either par­ty, and chum­my rela­tions among the members.

That was then.

Twen­ty years ago, Demo­c­rat Maria Cantwell won the clos­est U.S. Sen­ate race in the coun­try, oust­ing Repub­li­can incum­bent Sen­a­tor Slade Gor­ton by a mar­gin of 2,229 votes. She won only five of Washington’s thir­ty-nine coun­ties but piled up a 150,000-vote mar­gin in King Coun­ty. Twen­ty years lat­er, Joe Biden and Jay Inslee were car­ry­ing the coun­ty by a half-mil­lion votes.

The Puget Sound region’s one Repub­li­can-held seat in Con­gress, the 8th Dis­trict, flipped in 2018 with the vic­to­ry of Demo­c­ra­t­ic U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Kim Schri­er. The Repub­li­can Par­ty had held the seat since it was cre­at­ed out of the 1980 census.

The 41st, 45th, and 48th Dis­trict are now rep­re­sent­ed in Olympia by all-Demo­c­ra­t­ic del­e­ga­tions. The most recent Sen­ate flip, a spe­cial 45th Dis­trict elec­tion in 2017, saw Democ­rats secure con­trol of the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate with the vic­to­ry of Sen­a­tor Man­ka Dhingra.

The county’s last reli­ably Repub­li­can leg­isla­tive dis­trict, the 5th in East King Coun­ty, has of late become a solid­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic district.

In fact, its 2020 State Sen­ate race was between two Democ­rats, pit­ting incum­bent State Sen­a­tor Mark Mul­let, a mod­er­ate Demo­c­rat friend­ly to busi­ness, against labor-backed nurse Ingrid Anderson.

Mul­let sur­vived by a six­ty vote margin.

If Per­ry unseats Lam­bert, there will be sev­en Democ­rats on the offi­cial­ly non-par­ti­san, nine-mem­ber Coun­ty Council.

King Coun­ty gov­ern­ment is a groom­ing ground for the state’s polit­i­cal lead­er­ship. John Spell­man, our last Repub­li­can gov­er­nor – he served from 1981 to 1985 – was, as men­tioned above, a King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive before win­ning statewide.

He was sur­pris­ing­ly pro­gres­sive, par­tic­u­lar­ly on civ­il rights and with a will­ing­ness to raise tax­es to cov­er state pro­grams in time of reces­sion. Mike Lowry had his start on the King Coun­ty Coun­cil before win­ning elec­tion to Con­gress and becom­ing Gov­er­nor. Lowry was suc­ceed­ed by King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Gary Locke.

Two oth­er cour­t­house alums are the most recent Wash­ing­ton State Attor­neys Gen­er­al, Repub­li­can Rob McKen­na and Demo­c­rat Bob Fer­gu­son, who had their start as mem­bers of the King Coun­ty Coun­cil. Fer­gu­son defeat­ed fel­low Coun­cil mem­ber Rea­gan Dunn in 2012 to win the state’s top legal post.

Years ago, the Seat­tle Week­ly described Mike Lowry as “the one Coun­cilmem­ber who works.” King Coun­ty gov­ern­ment has need­ed the occa­sion­al shakeup.

The most famous of these arguably came in 2003 when Fer­gu­son, a young attor­ney work­ing for a promi­nent Seat­tle firm, chal­lenged twen­ty-year King Coun­ty Coun­cil mem­ber Cyn­thia Sul­li­van in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic primary.

He beat her, prov­ing that nobody out­works Bob Ferguson.

Cour­t­house insid­ers were not pleased. When vot­ers reduced the thir­teen mem­ber Coun­ty Coun­cil to nine seats, they abol­ished Bob Ferguson’s dis­trict, and cel­e­brat­ed at the New Orleans Café in Pio­neer Square.

Fer­gu­son went out, ran against fel­low Demo­c­ra­t­ic incum­bent Car­olyn Edmonds in a new dis­trict, and unseat­ed her in the 2005 Demo­c­ra­t­ic primary.

He cel­e­brat­ed on elec­tion night at the New Orleans Café.

The coun­ty saw a sim­i­lar turnover two years ago, when thir­ty-two-year-old lawyer Gir­may Zihi­lay oust­ed twen­ty-five-year incum­bent Lar­ry Gos­sett, a major fig­ure in Seattle’s 1970’s civ­il rights move­ment. A son of Ethiopi­an immi­grants, Zihi­lay has become an impor­tant pro-active pro­gres­sive voice on the Council.

With Wednesday’s vote drop by King Coun­ty Elec­tions, Dow Con­stan­tine has 53.64% of the Top Two vote, to 29.68% for his chal­lenger (and mutu­al con­stituent) State Sen­a­tor Joe Nguyen. Nobody is count­ing out Nguyen’s future in state pol­i­tics, how­ev­er, and there is wide­spread if muf­fled thanks that he is chal­leng­ing Constantine’s bid for a fourth term. A Microsoft man­ag­er, Nguyen has already upset the apple cart of West Seattle’s polit­i­cal establishment.

The Con­stan­tine vs. Nguyen runoff will be yet anoth­er high pro­file race between two Democ­rats, on the heels of last year’s matchup for Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor between Democ­rats Den­ny Heck and Marko Liias. (Heck won). Seat­tle leg­isla­tive races have fea­tured two Democ­rats in the runoff ever since the Top Two elec­tion sys­tem now in use was autho­rized by the Unit­ed States Supreme Court in 2008.

As recent­ly as 2009, Con­stan­tine faced for­mer KIRO TV news anchor Susan Hutchi­son in the coun­ty exec­u­tive contest.

Despite Repub­li­can ties, Hutchi­son insist­ed she was not a par­ti­san. Vot­ers sus­pect­ed oth­er­wise, and he defeat­ed her by a big margin.

Hutchi­son went on to serve as the chair of the State Repub­li­can Par­ty and ran as the Repub­li­can nom­i­nee against Sen­a­tor Cantwell in 2018. Cantwell beat her in King Coun­ty by 461,583 votes, and statewide by a six­teen point margin.