State senator Ed Murray should have won the sole endorsement last night of the 36th District Democrats, the grassroots party apparatus for the district with Washington State’s highest voter turnout, thereby beckoning foot-soldiers to ring doorbells and distribute literature advancing the cause of making Murray Seattle’s first gay mayor.
The executive board of the 36th had recommended Murray’s endorsement, which meant that at last night’s meeting of the full memebership, Murray needed just a simple majority vote from the members to make that blessing official (any other contender needed a 60 percent vote).
But Murray couldn’t hack it.
In a statement that tried to turn lemons into lemonade, the Murray campaign said it “fell a little short” of the 50 percent needed to win. He got 43 percent of the vote, which wasn’t enough to win, but the campaign says they’d “be very happy to replicate that level of support from voters in the 36th on primary day.”
Mayor Mike McGinn did no better—his faction tried to advance dual and triple endorsements including his name, but lacked support to meet the 60 percent threshold. In the end, the 36th made no endorsement.