The dust has pretty much settled on the 2024 primary election. King County Elections (KCE) posted a little more than 40,000 ballots in today’s ballot dump, and they have about 3,000 left to go! At this point, KCE said updates will mostly represent cured signature challenges and late-arriving ballots from overseas and service voters.
Countywide, KCE reported just over 3,900 signature challenges remaining. You can check the status of your ballot here. If the county needs you to verify your signature, click here to fix it online. You have until Monday, August 19 at 4:30 pm to get your challenged ballots counted.
City Council candidate Alexis Mercedes Rinck cracked 50% in this most recent ballot drop. She will likely absorb supporters from her fellow progressives Tariq Yusuf and Saunatina Sanchez, who captured 8% of votes. Typically, the general election has higher turnout than the primary. In Seattle, that means more renters, more young people, and overall more progressives hitting the ballot box. This is bad, bad, bad news for Council appointee Tanya Woo, who sits at 38.43%. But she’s lost almost as many local elections as she’s voted in, so she’s probably used to it at this point!
Shaun Scott, the leading candidate for the 43rd Legislative District, got a sweet lil bump from today’s ballot drop. He’s now approaching 60%. His biggest competition, We Heart Seattle founder Andrea Suarez, secured just 20% of the vote.
Zooming out, the state legislature could get bluer. Some Democrats have their sights set on a supermajority which, as Rich wrote Friday, might be possible in the Senate, but seems unlikely in the House of Representatives. However! A Democratic supermajority doesn’t mean much if it includes a bunch of wannabe Republicans anyway. Luckily, this latest ballot drop has labor organizer Melissa Demyan closing in on one of the most notorious swinger dems, Rep. Larry Springer. Just 542 votes separate Demyan from the 20-year incumbent.
In other state legislature news, we can rest assured that Jaskaran Singh Sarao, the landlord who buddied up with fallen KOMO reporter Jonathon Choe to bully his tenant into leaving his Bellevue home before their court case wrapped up, will probably not get a seat in the State Senate. As of the latest ballot dump, Sarao only secured 26.38% of the vote while Lisa Wellman got 73.36%. I don’t want to live in a world where Choe helps launch political careers, so I’m glad to see Sarao won’t be much competition for Wellman.
Checking in on my hometown, Spokane, candidates found themselves in a near three-way tie for the open seat Rep. Marcus Riccelli left to run unopposed for the State Senate seat. As of 5pm, Republican Tony Kiepe leads with 35.48% of the vote, Democrat Natasha Hill is in second with 32.46%, and just 245 votes separate Hill from Democrat Ben Stuckart. Depending on how the remaining 100 or so ballots go in Spokane, we could see a recount to determine second place. Either way, given that more than 60% of the voters picked a Democrat, it does not look like the 3rd Legislative District will go red.
In statewide news, Dave Upthegrove is clinging onto the number two spot in the Public Lands Commissioner race by a thread. As Rich wrote on Friday, the last ballot dump bumped Upthegrove to second place by 4,500 votes. At about 3:30pm, Republican Sue Kuehl Pederson closed the gap, leaving a little more than 1,000 votes between her and Upthegrove. But then, Spokane County's numbers updated and Upthegrove is back up 5,700 votes. There’s about 72,000 ballots left for the state to process, so nerds should keep checking the blog for updates and witches should keep casting spells to get Upthegrove through the primary.
