CONTINUE THE COUNT! CONTINUE THE COUNT! Credit: HK

King County Elections (KCE) added 90,000 of the remaining 100,000 to the 2023 election results this afternoon. That means KCE needs to count about 10,000 ballots—5,000 to 6,000 of those ballots came from Seattle voters. So, as the kids say, it’s joever.

Well, for most races.

One Seattle City Council race remains incredibly close. In District 4, urbanist father and taxation fiend Ron Davis trails just 400 votes behind his opponent, City insider Maritza Rivera. At 49.07% and 50.57% Davis has made up a lot of ground since election night when he got just 44.23% of the vote. Math guy Andrew Hong estimated about 700 ballots left in that race, so it’s still a long shot, but the next batch could put the race into recount territory.

KCE recounts results by machine if candidates are within 0.5% of each other and recounts by hand if they are within 0.25%. KCE does not make that call until certification, which happens in two weeks. D4 voters, make sure your vote gets counted!

Davis may get the leftward swing progressive Seattle City Council candidates hoped for after the bleak results from election night, but so far, only two candidates got a comeback. 

In a battle between Ballard’s paper boy and Fremont’s king of nightlife, Council Member Dan Strauss snuck ahead of his slightly more conservative challenger Pete Hanning in the last ballot drop and he strengthened his lead today—51.95% to Hanning’s 47.55%. 

In District 2, lefty legend Council Member Tammy Morales finally overtook her conservative challenger, Tanya Woo, one of the most disastrously uninformed candidates of the bunch. Morales started behind with 45.33% to 54.24%, but now, at 50.49% to Woo’s 49.23%, Morales seems safe.

But an incumbent Council Member Andrew Lewis threw in the towel already. According to his campaign’s Twitter, Lewis called Kettle to concede this morning before the latest batch of ballots. At the time, he trailed Kettle by 1,300 ballots, but per Friday’s drop, he’s just 500 votes behind. 

In the open seats, it looks like the conservative (relative term, get a fucking grip) slate triumphed. 

KING 5 called the District 1 race, crowning tech lawyer Rob Saka the winner over his opponent worker advocate Maren Costa. Costa’s team knew they lost on election night when Saka earned 58.65% of the first batch, relying mostly on wealthier precincts in West Seattle, and Costa only 40.77%, finding more support in Georgetown and SODO. She managed to make up some ground in the latest drop—54.35% Saka, 45.21% Costa. 

In District 3, former Transportation Choices Coalition Executive Director Alex Hudson conceded to the Mayor’s pick, Joy Hollingsworth, this morning. Like Costa, things looked pretty grim for Hudson on Tuesday at 41.35% to 58.28%. But D3, which includes the Central District, Capitol Hill, and Madison Park, historically turns out in droves in the final hours before ballot boxes close, so the progressive swing to results hits even harder. But I guess it takes Council Member Kshama Sawant’s notorious GOTV operation to pull it off. 

KING 5 also called the race in District 5. Former judge Cathy Moore, the consensus candidate between business and labor, collected a whopping 70.14% of the vote on election night while her opponent, social equity consultant ChrisTiana ObeySumner earned just 29.45%. As of the latest drop, Moore got 64.44% and ObeySumner got 35.21%.

Hannah Krieg is a staff writer at The Stranger covering everything that goes down at Seattle City Hall. Importantly, she is a Libra. She is also The Stranger's resident Gen Z writer, with an affinity for...