There’s been a lead change in the con­test for Seat­tle City Coun­cil Dis­trict #6.

With today’s count, incum­bent Dan Strauss has over­tak­en his chal­lenger, Pete Han­ning, and looks set to return to the Seat­tle City Coun­cil for anoth­er term. Strauss was behind on Elec­tion Night and again yes­ter­day, but was expect­ed to move into first place by the end of the week with the tab­u­la­tion of late ballots.

He’s now done that, and tomor­row, he’ll almost cer­tain­ly pad his new lead.

Seattle City Council #6 results: Third day of counting

	Dan Strauss Oth­er | 14,754 votes	50.14%
	Pete Han­ning Oth­er | 14,529 votes	49.37%

Pri­or to becom­ing a Seat­tle City Coun­cilmem­ber in 2020 (he was elect­ed in 2019), Strauss served as a senior pol­i­cy advi­sor for for­mer Seat­tle City Coun­cilmem­ber Sal­ly Bagshaw, and as a leg­isla­tive assis­tant to now retired Sen­a­tor David Frockt.

“In Olympia as a leg­isla­tive aide, Strauss spear­head­ed the first ver­sion of Washington’s Extreme Risk Pro­tec­tion Order, a law designed to tem­porar­i­ly restrict access to firearms from peo­ple who demon­strate a threat to them­selves or oth­ers,” his offi­cial Coun­cil biog­ra­phy notes. “When the Leg­is­la­ture failed to pass respon­si­ble gun leg­is­la­tion, he went to work for the Alliance for Gun Respon­si­bil­i­ty on the Extreme Risk Pro­tec­tion Orders Ini­tia­tive (I‑1491), which he helped get passed in 2016 with over 70 per­cent of the vote.”

His cam­paign web­site notes: “Dan loves liv­ing in Bal­lard because there is nowhere else that is blocks to both the salt­wa­ter and fresh­wa­ter, and on mul­ti­ple bus routes. In his free time, Dan enjoys moun­taineer­ing, build­ing hik­ing trails, and kayak­ing around Seat­tle. He has raced 3 times in the SEVENTY48, an unsup­port­ed human pow­er race from Taco­ma to Port Townsend cov­er­ing 70 miles.”

“Last year he cut 5 hours off his time and com­plet­ed the 70 miles in 24 hours, 15 min­utes.  You can most often find him walk­ing around Green Lake, on Bal­lard Avenue, in Dis­cov­ery Park, or launch­ing his kayak at Elks Lodge #827.”

Strauss was endorsed in his bid for a sec­ond term by The Stranger and The Urban­ist. The Seat­tle Times, how­ev­er, declined to endorse Strauss for reelec­tion, back­ing Han­ning instead. The Times cit­ed Strauss’ record on pub­lic safe­ty and his fail­ure to sub­ject May­or Bruce Har­rel­l’s pro­posed tree ordi­nance to robust leg­isla­tive and pub­lic scruti­ny, which could have result­ed in a pro­pos­al that reflect­ed com­mu­ni­ty input rather than what the Mas­ter Builders wanted.

“Despite a plea from the city’s own Urban For­est Com­mis­sion to post­pone the May 23 vote on an ordi­nance that the com­mis­sion said vio­lat­ed city code and did not fol­low the Seat­tle Race and Social Jus­tice Initiative’s Racial Equi­ty Toolk­it process, Strauss forged ahead. Seat­tle will undoubt­ed­ly be less green because of it,” the Times edi­to­ri­al­ized in its endorse­ment of Han­ning.

Han­ning, a small busi­ness own­er, leads the Fre­mont Cham­ber of Commerce.

“I’ve been civi­cal­ly engaged through­out my career, with a focus on improv­ing pub­lic safe­ty and sup­port­ing small busi­ness­es. I’ve served on many boards, includ­ing the Fre­mont Neigh­bor­hood Coun­cil, the North Precinct Advi­so­ry Coun­cil, the Fre­mont Cham­ber of Com­merce, the Seat­tle Restau­rant Alliance, and the Wash­ing­ton Restaurant/Hospitality Asso­ci­a­tion. I helped form the Seat­tle Restau­rant Alliance and the Seat­tle Nightlife & Music Asso­ci­a­tion,” Han­ning’s cam­paign biog­ra­phy says.

The Urban­ist backed Strauss, char­ac­ter­iz­ing him as the bet­ter choice while fault­ing him for some of his votes and lim­it­ed effectiveness.

“We’re hop­ing for more from the land use com­mit­tee chair; the City Coun­cil sore­ly needs a strong leader in this role as it works to pass a ‘Major Update’ to its Com­pre­hen­sive Plan by the end of 2024. While we appre­ci­ate Strauss’s ded­i­ca­tion to traf­fic safe­ty and lib­er­al­iz­ing street cafe rules, the few changes he has worked to imple­ment have been rel­a­tive­ly minor.”

The Stranger’s endorse­ment of Strauss was even more reluc­tant.

“With all the con­sti­tu­tion of a pile of sug­ar-free Jel­lo, Strauss spent his first few years on coun­cil fol­low­ing the lead of oth­er pro­gres­sive politi­cians. But as his re-elec­tion approached, he piv­ot­ed hard­er and hard­er to the right. He held his tongue on most con­tentious votes, such as the council’s drug war reboot, but then he inevitably sided with the worst peo­ple on the dais,” the alt-week­ly editorialized.

Nev­er­the­less, Strauss made it onto The Stranger’s “Cheat Sheet.”

And, as of tonight, he’s the only incum­bent from any of the sev­en city coun­cil dis­tricts poised to return to the coun­cil. Lisa Her­bold, Kshama Sawant, Alex Ped­er­sen, and Deb­o­ra Juarez are all retir­ing, while incum­bents Tam­my Morales and Andrew Lewis, who decid­ed to run again, remain behind.

There’s a chance Morales pulls it out in Dis­trict #2 — the out­come could be very close. Lewis’ prospects in Dis­trict #7 are grimmer.

We’ll con­tin­ue to keep an eye on these con­tests as the count­ing continues.