SEATTLE — The mayoral race pits incumbent Bruce Harrell against challenger Katie Wilson. Voters will decide who earns the key to the Emerald City.
As of November 11, Wilson is leading the race by 1,346 votes with 137,217 votes. Harrell trails with 135,871, and there have been 908 write-ins.
The first ballot count dropped for the General Election around 8 p.m. on Tuesday. Harrell was leading, 53% to 46%.
To see if your ballot has been counted, check its status here.
In a statement to KIRO 7, Wilson’s campaign is claiming victory:
“We want to wait until every vote has been counted, but we believe that we’ve won this race. We’re just inside the mandatory recount threshold, but as we continue to cure ballots with our huge turnout of volunteers, we’re hopeful that we can put the campaign behind us soon and focus on governing the city. Katie will be a mayor for the entire city, and Seattle residents are going to expect results. We’re eager to begin that process!”
In a statement to KIRO 7, Harrell’s campaign issued the following statement:
“While not the direction we were hoping for, this remains a very close race, and we want to ensure every vote is counted. We are grateful to our volunteers, who continue to reach out to voters, and will see how the final ballots are tallied.”
Election judges compare signatures with the Department of Licensing records of voters’ signatures. Judges look at similarities and if they suspect a signature doesn’t match, another election judge will take a look.
“Curing” is the process of those people correcting their signatures. King County Electiond says they email, mail, call and text (if phone numbers are provided) to get people to correct their ballot online or in-person.
In close races, campaigns will use the publicly available data to reach out to those voters.
“Especially in close races. We see a much higher percentage of those signature issues get resolved. So we expected to see quite a few coming back in the days ahead.” Kendal Hodson said, the chief of staff for the King County Elections Office.
In the Primary Election in August, Harrell was trailing Wilson by about 18,000 votes.
Harrell has said that he was to continue working on public safety, and will continue work on addressing housing affordability and issues faced by small business owners.
He has been endorsed by Gov. Bob Ferguson, Attorney General Nick Brown and three former Democratic governors, among others.
Wilson is the founder and Executive Director of the Transit Riders Union. She studied physics and philosophy at Oxford University before moving to Seattle in 2004.
Since moving to Seattle, Wilson has led campaigns to raise the minimum wage and win stronger renter protections across Seattle, Kenmore, Kirkland, Redmond, Burien, SeaTac, Shoreline, Tukwila, and unincorporated King County.
Her platform includes tackling “skyrocketing living costs, homelessness, public safety, and Trump’s cruel and chaotic attacks,” she said.
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