Tammy Morales overtakes Tanya Woo in Seattle City Council District #2

A sec­ond Seat­tle City Coun­cil incum­bent has erased a sig­nif­i­cant Elec­tion Night deficit and tak­en the lead from their chal­lenger in as many days.

As of today’s count — the fourth over­all in this 2023 gen­er­al elec­tion — Coun­cilmem­ber Tam­my Morales is ahead of rival Tanya Woo and on track to win. Like her col­league Dan Strauss in Dis­trict #6, Morales was able to pull ahead thanks to late bal­lots that strong­ly favored her.

Seattle City Council #2 results: Fourth day of counting

Morales was first elect­ed to the Seat­tle City Coun­cil in 2019. Four years pri­or, she had chal­lenged Bruce Har­rell for Coun­cil in Dis­trict #2, los­ing by only a few hun­dred votes. In 2019, Har­rell opt­ed not to seek reelec­tion and Morales became his suc­ces­sor in a land­slide, defeat­ing Mark Solomon with 60.47% of the vote.

“I’ve been in Seat­tle for over twen­ty years, work­ing and advo­cat­ing for Seattle’s com­mu­ni­ties of col­or,” Morales writes on her 2023 cam­paign web­site. “Pri­or to being elect­ed to City Coun­cil in 2019, I worked for an afford­able hous­ing lender, as a com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­er, and a food jus­tice advocate.”

“I am trained as a com­mu­ni­ty and region­al plan­ner — hav­ing spent my career work­ing with front­line com­mu­ni­ties to bring about food secu­ri­ty and to stop dis­place­ment in low-income neigh­bor­hoods. Cur­rent­ly, I chair the Neigh­bor­hoods, Edu­ca­tion, Civ­il Rights, and Cul­ture Com­mit­tee where we work to help fam­i­lies who are strug­gling in our city and cre­ate an econ­o­my that works for everyone.”

Morales was endorsed for reelec­tion by The Stranger and The Urbanist.

“Morales votes the right way on every issue,” gushed The Stranger in its endorse­ment state­ment. “Cops? She won’t give them more mon­ey. Renters? She goes to bat for them. Sweeps? She decries them. Hous­ing? She wants to decom­mod­i­fy it. When a con­tentious vote comes before the coun­cil, she rarely gets a fran­tic call from our City Hall reporter to ask which way she’s going to go.”

“Four years ago, we endorsed Tam­my Morales because of her clear sup­port for invest­ments in tran­sit and afford­able hous­ing, com­mit­ment to our most vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, and pro­gres­sive vision,” The Urban­ist wrote. “We have not been dis­ap­point­ed. Morales has proven her­self to be an out­stand­ing coun­cilmem­ber for urban­ists. She has been a cham­pi­on for safe streets and pedes­tri­an safe­ty, was an ear­ly sup­port­er of social hous­ing, and laid out her sup­port for Com­pre­hen­sive Plan Alter­na­tive 6 in an op-ed in the Seat­tle Times.”

The Seat­tle Times, for its part, backed Woo.

“Morales, the cur­rent coun­cil mem­ber for the dis­trict, is fre­quent­ly crit­i­cized by small busi­ness own­ers in Lit­tle Saigon, Sodo and oth­er neigh­bor­hoods for not seem­ing to care about endem­ic prop­er­ty crime and van­dal­ism,” the Seat­tle Times edi­to­r­i­al board wrote in its endorse­ment of Woo, char­ac­ter­iz­ing her as “best able to rep­re­sent all of South Seattle’s dif­fer­ent voices.”

Not many bal­lots remain to be count­ed in the 2nd or any oth­er Seat­tle city coun­cil dis­trict, so Morales’ new lead should remain intact.

Count­ing will con­tin­ue next week. The Novem­ber 2023 gen­er­al elec­tion is due to be cer­ti­fied by coun­ty can­vass­ing boards on Novem­ber 28th.