District 2 candidate Tammy Morales conceded today after it became clear incumbent Bruce Harrell would win the city council seat representing South Seattle.
District 2 candidate Tammy Morales conceded today after it became clear incumbent Bruce Harrell would win the city council seat representing South Seattle. courtesy of tammy morales

Things are really coming down to the wire in West Seattle. With just 58 new ballots counted since yesterday, Shannon Braddock gained a little ground on Lisa Herbold in the race for the District 1 Seattle City Council seat.

Herbold remains in the lead by 24 votes, which is slightly down from yesterday's 35-vote lead.

Virtually all of the ballots that have been certified in that district have been counted, but it's not quite over. Some ballots with signature problems and other issues remain uncertified and therefore uncounted.

It's hard to get exact numbers on this right now. The King County Elections Office isn't updating the total number of certified ballots at the same time it's updating the results of the ballots it is counting. But, what we know is that as of last night, 351 ballots in District 1 remained uncertified. Some of those will end up counted and some of them won't. Campaigns are now in the process of trying to track down people whose ballots haven't been certified in order to make sure the problems are fixed and those ballots are counted.

With such a narrow margin separating the two candidates in this race, a recount is likely once the final results are certified next week. (Also: considering the narrow margin, the 163 people who wrote in someone other than Braddock or Herbold remain infuriating.)

In the other race that had, for a brief time, been an equally exciting nail-biter, Tammy Morales today conceded to Bruce Harrell in the race to represent South Seattle's District 2. While Morales only trails Harrell by 349 votes, it's become clear in recent days that it would be impossible for her to make up enough ground to win.

In a concession speech today, Morales urged her supporters to "join me in supporting Council Member Harrell and other community leaders in the push to shift the balance of power back to working families."

Here's a bit of her speech (my emphasis added):

While we didn't win the election, I am very proud of the campaign we ran, the coalition we built and of the work we did to bring attention to the issues facing District 2—housing affordability and tenant protections, support for neighborhood businesses and internet infrastructure, issues of police accountability.

Can you believe, from where we started how far we have come? No one expected this campaign to get traction. Few were covering this race in South Seattle. But we listened to the people and raised our voices on the issues that mattered, showed what was possible, what was important to us, and, against all odds—including operating with a fraction of the funding of my opponent - we earned the support of almost 50% of the voters.

Here where everything stands with most city ballots counted:

DISTRICT 1

Lisa Herbold: 49.72%

Shannon Braddock: 49.63%

DISTRICT 2

Bruce Harrell: 50.81%

Tammy Morales: 48.95%

DISTRICT 3

Kshama Sawant: 55.95%

Pamela Banks: 43.77%

DISTRICT 4

Rob Johnson: 51.30%

Michael Maddux: 48.22%

DISTRICT 5

Debora Juarez: 64.31%

Sandy Brown: 35.15%

DISTRICT 6

Mike O'Brien: 61.30%

Catherine Weatbrook: 38.41%

DISTRICT 7

Sally Bagshaw: 80.90%

Deborah Zech-Artis: 18.35%

POSITION 8

Tim Burgess: 54.56%

Jon Grant: 44.87%

POSITION 9

Lorena González: 78.06%

Bill Bradburd: 21.43%

LET'S MOVE SEATTLE LEVY:

For: 58.67%

Against: 41.33%

HONEST ELECTIONS SEATTLE:

For: 63.12%

Against: 36.88%

TIM EYMAN'S INITIATIVE 1366 (statewide):

For: 51.51%

Against: 48.49%

ENDANGERED ANIMALS INITIATIVE 1401 (statewide)

For: 70.3%

Against: 29.7%