Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lenger Sarah Per­ry appears to have suc­ceed­ed in her cam­paign to bring new pro­gres­sive rep­re­sen­ta­tion to King Coun­ty’s 3rd Coun­ty Coun­cil Dis­trict. While many bal­lots still remain to be count­ed, ini­tial returns from King Coun­ty Elec­tions tonight have Per­ry eleven points ahead of incum­bent Repub­li­can Kathy Lam­bert. Per­ry cur­rent­ly has 55.12% of the vote to Lam­bert’s 44.50%, which is a gap that is unlike­ly to be over­come in the late ballots.

Lam­bert is one of the longest serv­ing mem­bers of the King Coun­ty Coun­cil and has been in office since the days when it was a thir­teen-mem­ber par­ti­san body as opposed to a nine-mem­ber “non­par­ti­san” body. She has pre­vi­ous­ly been reelect­ed sev­er­al times with only token oppo­si­tion, or no oppo­si­tion at all.

But this year was different.

This year, Lam­bert drew a strong Demo­c­ra­t­ic oppo­nent from the get-go in Per­ry, who became polit­i­cal­ly active dur­ing the 2016 pres­i­den­tial cycle and sub­se­quent­ly worked to flip the exur­ban 5th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict blue in 2018 as an activist.

King Coun­ty Coun­cil hope­ful Sarah Per­ry is an expe­ri­enced non­prof­it leader and Demo­c­ra­t­ic orga­niz­er (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

Per­ry and fel­low Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lenger Joe Cohen col­lec­tive­ly net­ted about 59% of the vote in the August Top Two elec­tion, while Lam­bert received only 40%, demon­strat­ing vot­ers’ inter­est in elect­ing new rep­re­sen­ta­tion for the district.

Per­ry won Lam­bert’s home precinct in Red­mond and moved clos­er to Lam­bert in the late bal­lots back in August. (If that dynam­ic repeats this month, Per­ry could end up with an even wider lead over Lam­bert than she has now.)

Lam­bert’s response to the Top Two results was to turn to a slimy con­sul­tant, 1892 LLC, that con­coct­ed a set of dis­gust­ing, false attacks aimed at dis­cred­it­ing Perry.

One of those dis­gust­ing attacks became the basis for a racist mail­er trash­ing Lam­bert’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic col­league Gir­may Zahi­lay that was wide­ly and loud­ly con­demned. After ini­tial­ly refus­ing to apol­o­gize and admit wrong­do­ing, Lam­bert rapid­ly began los­ing sup­port. The Seat­tle Times edi­to­r­i­al board with­drew its endorse­ment of her, as did the Real­tors and oth­er busi­ness groups. The Seat­tle Mariners, mean­while, con­tributed $1,000 to Sarah Per­ry’s campaign.

After watch­ing those endorse­ments dis­ap­pear, Lam­bert cut ties with 1892 LLC and declared on Face­book that she need­ed to apol­o­gize to Zahi­lay. Zahi­lay under­stand­ably deemed her state­ment a non-apol­o­gy and refused to accept it.

The mail­er iron­i­cal­ly had the effect of inform­ing East­side vot­ers (most of whom iden­ti­fy as Democ­rats) that Lam­bert was a Repub­li­can — and not the Dan Evans kind, but the con­tem­po­rary Don­ald Trump wor­ship­ing kind.

It was seem­ing­ly the final, fatal blow for Lam­bert’s already-trou­bled campaign.

The 3rd used to be one of the most Repub­li­can places in King Coun­ty. But as the coun­ty has grown and changed, the dis­trict has become Demo­c­ra­t­ic turf. It vot­ed over­whelm­ing­ly for Pres­i­dent Joe Biden last year and its inhab­i­tants strong­ly sup­port the poli­cies and admin­is­tra­tion of Demo­c­ra­t­ic Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee.

The 3rd’s polit­i­cal meta­mor­pho­sis mir­rors that of the neigh­bor­ing 6th, which dumped Repub­li­can incum­bent Jane Hague six years ago for Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lenger Clau­dia Bal­duc­ci. (Bal­duc­ci is now the Chair of the Council.)

The 6th was a bat­tle­ground for all of one elec­tion cycle. Like oth­er East­side dis­tricts, such as the 45th and 5th Leg­isla­tive Dis­tricts, once it flipped, it stayed blue. The dis­trict is now con­sid­ered safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic by polit­i­cal observers.

Bal­duc­ci had no trou­ble hold­ing the 6th in 2019; even Repub­li­cans like Louise Miller declared their sup­port for her reelec­tion campaign.

The same will prob­a­bly be true of the 3rd in what­ev­er form it takes after the lines of the coun­ty’s nine coun­cil dis­tricts get redrawn at the end of this year.

Hav­ing appar­ent­ly antic­i­pat­ed win­ning reelec­tion this year, Lam­bert a few months ago self­ish­ly urged the King Coun­ty Redis­trict­ing Com­mis­sion to redraw the 3rd to exclude Issaquah (which is where Per­ry cur­rent­ly resides).

How­ev­er, based on tonight’s results, Lam­bert no longer has to wor­ry about her cred­i­bil­i­ty as an elect­ed offi­cial or reelec­tion prospects for 2023. In a few weeks, she’ll be leav­ing office and Per­ry will take her place as the first new rep­re­sen­ta­tive cho­sen by the vot­ers of the 3rd Coun­ty Coun­cil Dis­trict in over two decades.