As of press time, we still have around 40,000 ballots left to count in King County—including about 14,000 in Seattle—and more than 144,000 ballots left to count statewide. King County’s signature-challenged ballots number a little more than 4,200, including 1,573 in Seattle. Check the status of your ballot here, and if the county wants you to verify your signature, then just head on over here to fix it online. You have until Monday, August 19 at 4:30 pm to do so, so get on it.
Despite the remaining votes, we’ve seen some fun movement in several of the races we’re tracking. Let’s run through them!!!
As predicted, progressive challenger Melissa Chaudhry leapt ahead of Republican and transphobe Paul Martin in the race to face longtime incumbent Adam Smith in Washington’s 9th Congressional District, which covers Seattle’s southern and eastern burbs. Chaudhry now leads Martin 20% to 18%, giving pro-Palestine voters a champion to rally around in the coming months. Though Chaudhry boasts better policy chops than any Smith challenger I’ve seen in the last decade, as I’ve mentioned in previous updates, she’s running behind relative to the progressive in 2018.
In a positive turn of events, in the Commissioner for Public Lands race, King County Council Member Dave Upthegrove scooted by MAGA Republican Sue Pederson and now holds second place by 4,500-votes. If that lead holds, then he’ll make it through the primary in good shape to win the general, as the combined Republican vote totals currently stand at 43%. On the hopeful side, Upthegrove took 40.9% of the vote in the latest drop from King County, and his team only expected around 36%. (There’s you late-breaking Stranger voters, saving the day again 😀). But the 😬 news for team Upthegrove is the fact that more than 144,000 votes remain outstanding. Though 41,000 of those votes lie in liberal King County, the rest lie in the red ocean around us. Over the phone, Upthegrove said his team still predicts a “very close” race, and tomorrow they will launch a ballot chasing operation with 150 volunteers.
Okay, a couple months ago I wrote about the prospect of Washington State Democrats winning a supermajority in the State Legislature, which would give them the power to change the state constitution, which would be cool. Right now, that proposition looks potentially possible for the state Senate, but probably impossible for the State House.
Let’s start with the State House Democrats. As far as incumbent defense goes, House Democratic Campaign Committee Chair and State Rep. Monica Stonier says she feels comfortable. The East King County’s 5th LD looks good, South King County’s 47th and 30th LDs looks good, and the Tacoma-area’s 28th LD looks good, with most incumbents running in the mid-to-high 50s. Up in the islands, Democratic State House Rep. Clyde Shavers is currently pulling in 52%, which is fine. The combined vote total for the three-way Dem race over on the Olympic peninsula is 58.5%, so they’re fine there, too.
To earn a supermajority, though, State House Democrats need to win all the seats in southwest Washington’s 17th and 18th Legislative District, as well as Kitsap peninsula’s 26th Legislative District, and also the newly drawn 14th Legislative District. They also need to pick up at least one seat in central Washington’s 12th Legislative District.
Dems only fielded one candidate in the two races down in the 17th, but she’s not doing too badly. Right now, Terri Niles is putting up 47% of the vote against a couple Republicans. Next door in the 18th, Democrat John Zingale leads two Republicans with 48% of the vote, and Deken Letinich is struggling against Republican Stephanie McClintock with 44.5%.
The 26th LD is looking about the same. In his second run, Democrat Adison Richards nearly cracked 50% of the vote against two Republicans, including angry man and former Republican Rep. Jesse Young. Democrat Tiffany Mitchell will get through the crowded primary with 30% of the vote, and she’ll face a tough fight against incumbent Republican Michele Caldier, who pulled in 34%.
Down in Yakima, 14th LD Dems Chelsea Dimas and Ana Ruiz Kennedy are running in the mid-to-high 30s against Republican challengers. Stonier said the candidates say they’re “doing a lot of education and voter registration at the doors.” Republicans ruled that district for many years before redistricting, and they “didn’t do a lot of outreach” so there are “a lot of voters who haven’t been invited to participate in a meaningful way,” she said.
In the 12th, Democrat Heather Koellen has 44% of the vote.
So right now, House Dems are on track to pick up one seat, and two others look to be in striking distance. The other five need help, and Stonier wants to give it to them in the form of more support for field campaigns. They will be uphill battles, but the recent vibe shift at the national level gives her hope. “There was a tangible shift in energy [when Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris stepped up]. People were opening the doors and wanting to talk about legislative candidates more frequently than in the months before,” she said.
Now on to the better news for state Senate Democrats. State Senate Democratic candidates in the historically swingy 5th, 28th, and 24th Legislative Districts are doing fine, all hovering in the mid 50s. So they won’t have to spend much money on defense in those places.
Up in the islands, the combined Democratic vote total at the moment sits at 51.5%, which is good news for Island County Commissioner Janet St Clair, who leads that race for the Dems.
Over in Yakima’s 14th LD, Maria Beltran brought in only 41.5% of the vote, but a couple Dems and one operative I talked to really just feel like they can still make gains out there in the general, given Biden’s success within the boundaries of that new district, so we’ll see.
Down in the 17th, White Salmon Mayor and Democrat Marla Keethler is doing very well with 49% of the vote, and in the nearby 18th, Democrat Adrian Cortes leads two Republicans with 46% of the vote. Rep Stonier attributes Cortes’s relative success to a strong door-knocking operation.
And over in the 12th, Democrat Jim Mayhew trails Republican Keith Goehner with 43%.
To win a supermajority, state Senate Dems need to pick up four seats, and right now, like the House, they’re leading in one race and running within striking distance in two races. If the enthusiasm about the general election in the 14th is real, then they’re looking pretttttyyyyyy, pretty, pretty close to a supermajority in the state Senate. Which is fun!
The big news in Seattle revolves around Alexis Mercedes Rinck, who will very likely crack 50% in the coming days. Right now she’s running a somewhat astonishing 20,000 votes ahead of incumbent Seattle City Council Member Tanya Woo, 49.86% to 39%. If you tack on the combined 8% from the other progressive candidates in this race, then a 19% lead for progressives must have the business stooges shaking their heads and looking to cut their losses in the general.
Not to be outdone, Shaun Scott added three more points to his vote share in race for the open State House seat in the 43rd Legislative District, which covers central Seattle. He now leads with 59%. Meanwhile, We Heart Seattle Founder Andrea Suarez keeps losing her share of the pie as the county tallies more votes. She now holds a distant second with 20%, down a couple points from yesterday. There appears to be no hope for Daniel Carusello, who lost a point between yesterday and today, and who now sits at 16%.
I said it before, and I’ll say it again. You want to actually solve Seattle’s problems? You want leaders who actually represent the majority of the people who live here? Then tell your representatives to institute even-year elections now.
Long time reader here. The self-congratulatory backslapping for the STRANGER ENDORSED candidates is not a good look. Frankly it reeks of desperation, so maybe tone it down. Your endorsements matter, but not as much as they used to.
Thank you for the breakdown!
“Chaudhry now leads Martin 20% to 18%, giving pro-Palestine voters a champion to rally around in the coming months.”
At the end of said time, the champion of the pro-Palestine voters will, most likely, get utterly crushed in a massive landslide, delivered by one of the most consistently liberal congressional districts in the entire country. Somehow I doubt this enormous defeat will improve the pro-Palestinian voters’ chances of, say, getting Congress to reduce US military aid to Israel (they’re currently demanding a full embargo).
“I said it before, and I’ll say it again. You want to actually solve Seattle’s problems? You want leaders who actually represent the majority of the people who live here? Then tell your representatives to institute even-year elections now. “
In 2021 turnout was over 50% and in 2023 it was in the high 40s and cracked 50% in a few races. Thus far turnout for this primary is 37% so that statement from Rich just isn’t true. I agree we’ll likely get higher turnout in the general but assuming these results will carry through to that election is conjecture.
We don’t have a “red ocean around us”. We have a purple ocean, because the Democratic Party does not invest in the rural areas, which is both stupid and short-sighted. Rural areas should be solidly Democratic because their issues are the same as the party’s platform. Even the “controversial” social issues.
There are gay couples in rural areas. There are transpeople in rural areas, and there are people who believe in bodily autonomy in rural areas. There is also crime, economic inequality, and drug abuse. The stereotype of the hayseed rube/bible-addled nitwit is fading rapidly and is only being propped up by a lazy media and a desperate GOP, tacitly assisted by a Democratic party that is content to stay in the cities.
@4 Rich is correct:
2023 King county primary voter turnout was 30.76%, 2021 was almost 35%, 2019 was 35%, etc .. so 37% thus far is better if not great
2023 Washington state primary turnout was 28.89%, 2021 was 29.72%, 2019 was 29.56%, etc ..
and general election turnout are always greater than in primary
so no conjecture, but reasonable assumption that next general election will conform to the historical norm
@7 no doubt turnout will be greater I just don’t see evidence that it helps progressive candidates.
@7 it’s may be what Rich meant as there is much to suggest that a higher turnout favors progressives, and conservatives do spend a lot of energy suppressing the vote, but it’s not what he says in the citation you quoted: even years elections result in higher turnout, and de facto represent better who lives here. Anyhow, the 2023 elections that resulted in a pro-business Seattle council had the lowest turnout in 15 years (the available data).
@8: “…and conservatives do spend a lot of energy suppressing the vote…”
Give a single example of voter suppression in Seattle or King County. Just one.
tensorna dear, don’t you remember the fake ballot box on the campus of Seattle Central? (although it was so fake you’d have to be a conservative to actually put a ballot in there)
And averagebob dear, I still maintain that the “pro-business” council was largely protest votes. Being a council member is not just a platform for whatever global cause you wish to advocate for – you have to also take care of business, especially in a district based council. That low turnout may have been because people were frustrated by that council – it can be argued either way.
@8 a higher turnout favors Dems in our state but as TS loves to remind us most them are corp shills and sell outs not progressives lol. To wit in 2021 NTK and Oliver won the primary with low turnout but when the general rolled around they were thumped. Primary’s are about what the dedicated voters care about but it’s the middle and undecideds that carry the general.
@9 Well, it was meant to be a general statement because I believe it almost holds true everywhere the world over that progressives do better with higher voter turnout, but just for you I did a quick search about who is trying to prevent moving local elections to even years because that would be an example of local voter suppression given the overwhelming evidence that turnouts are way higher in even years. Lo-and-behold, my intuition was correct, Reagan Dunn (voted against proposal) and local crackpot Jason Rantz are against moving King County elections to even years because Democrats would be advantaged by higher turnout and supposedly because the people don’t have the attention span to focus on local stuff during federal elections.
@10 I remember 2023 as marked by extensive right wing propaganda in the local press about crime and insecurity, which combined with a low turnout dominated by the elderly produced the desire effect for conservatives
@11 Actually, the 2021 general had among the lowest turnout (44%), which is quite low compared to even years, and the primary only had 35%.
So the “extensive right-wing propaganda in the local press” caused all the progressives to hunker down in their homes, afraid to even go to their mailbox, and that prohibited them from rallying for their candidates, while the elderly – who are all craven conservatives – were able to get it together enough to vote?
Well, that’s certainly an interesting theory, averagebob, dear.
@12 “because I believe it almost holds true everywhere the world over that progressives do better with higher voter turnout”
This is just not true. It may be true in a progressive area like Seattle where voters already lean progressive but if you were to look in Idaho for example I doubt you’d find higher turnout equates to more progressive votes beccause there just isn’t that many progressive that live there. I think you’ll find in Seattle that the progressives (as The Stranger defines them) may take a step back when it comes to someone like Shaun Scott as I really don’t believe 65% of the 43rd leans at far left as he does. He’ll probably still win but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was more like 52-48. The primary provides trends but assuming the results are going to hold to the general is just a recipe for disappointment.
@14 Actually, I never implied causality between propaganda and the low turn out as you just did, dear Catalina. I only noted they occurred concurrently. As A matter of fact, I cannot explain the low turn out but I can very well explain how fear mongering about “increasing crime” (false) would induce socially isolated populations to buy into law and order messaging. This is standard rightwing campaigning, the world over.
@15 It’s not a function of how many people consider themselves progressives, it’s about how many are disenfranchised from the political and economic processes because their interests aren’t represented by politicians and their living conditions never get any better. At best, 65% of the age voting pop participates in Idaho elections, so there is a big margin for improvement.
@12: “…prevent moving local elections to even years because that would be an example of local voter suppression…”
No, that would be an example of hoping for local voter apathy. As Mrs. Vel-DuRay noted in passing, King County mails a ballot to each voter, who never has to leave home to vote. If the voter freely chooses not to participate, that is the voter’s choice.
And then, you dump comment after comment after comment here, about how nobody bothers to vote progressive anymore because of media fear-mongering, voter repression, blah blah blah anything but “progressive policies have all failed and not even Seattle wants them anymore.” Whining about the media is just Horseshoe Theory lefty version of Nixon complaining about the “liberal media,” because the corporate media finally followed up on W. Mark Felt’s evidence showing Nixon was a crook. Just because the Stranger refuses to report on dirty needles, rampant crime, and dead homeless women doesn’t mean the rest of the populace can’t see any of that.
@18 Perfect, I like it when you drop the “i am a liberal” routine and really show us how much of a “Seattle is dying” conservative corporate shill you are.
I won’t waste my time detailing again your usual twisting of words, mischaracterization of what is said, etc .. because there is really nothing out of the ordinary for you. After all, it’s all you can do.
@19: And your dumping of any pretense of argument in favor of name-calling nicely cedes the point, thank you. For the sake of completeness, I’ll counter a couple of your smears.
If absolutely everyone even slightly less radical than Sawant or whomever is a “conservative,” then the term no longer has any meaning. The persons you and the Stranger keep calling conservatives, corporate shills, etc. are bog-standard Seattle liberal Democrats, who would be considered extreme lefties even in other parts of Washington state. Calling everyone “conservative” for daring to disagree with you just admits your policies have all failed and you’re out of ideas, without you having the courage or honesty to state it plainly.
I never saw the “Seattle Is Dying” documentary; heck, I didn’t even know it existed before writers here started whining about it. For decades, I lived in Seattle neighborhoods with high walk scores, going everywhere either on foot, bicycle, or public transportation, and the city’s visibly rapid decline after electing a “progressive” Council was shocking. They responded to this decline exactly as you have here, by attacking critics and doubling down on failed policies. They’re mostly gone now, leaving their messes for others to fix, and for you to fantasize about how evil corporate media and voter suppression are the only reasons. Good luck with that.
It is truly mesmerizing how you manage to spin a yarn completely detached from reality: you make your opponents say things they haven’t said and ignore what they have said. It is completely unhinged. Your claims about Seattle and its council are baseless, although it is (was) far from perfect, but it has never prevented you from repeating these claims ad-infinitum in the hope that some of your pathological hate of progressives will stick. It is your standard MO after all.
Seattle does have a homelessness problem but so do all majors cities in the USA, especially on the West coast, where unhoused people congregate. Were all of these cities governed by progressives? No, and not even close to it. So how can you even consider that progressive policies have anything to do with people sleeping on sidewalks without access to services beside your sickly need to have progressives hold the proverbial bag? Especially since there are so many other better candidates, like economic inequality unseen in over a century, over half the population barely making ends meet, and the lack of adequate services (like social housing, mental health, etc) pulverized by 40 years of neoliberal policies, to explain how such a large fraction of the citizenry ends up without shelter and largely disconnected from the rest of society. Homelessness is not really a local issue. A single region doesn’t not have the resources and the control over economic policy to address such systemic problems that keep generating new homeless people every day.
I’ll tell you what a conservative is since you so clearly refuse to look at yourself in the mirror: it’s someone who claims that sweeping the homeless out of sight will magically solve the problem since we can’t see them anymore. It’s someone who claim that people sleeping on sidewalk are there strictly of their own volition because they aren’t willing to pull on imaginary bootstraps. It’s someone who refuses to implement progressive taxation to rebuild and provide the services needed to rehabilitate those who can still be reinserted and admittedly many are too far gone for that. It’s someone who claims that repression is the only solution to widespread drug use when it has clearly shown to be a failure. and on, but I have wasted enough time on your worthless drivel.
@4: “I said it before, and I’ll say it again. You want to actually solve Seattle’s problems? You want leaders who actually represent the majority of the people who live here? Then tell your representatives to institute even-year elections now.”
While it’s amazing how odd-year elections somehow managed to create a Council whom the Stranger relentlessly defended (until most of them quit, ahead of being fired), it’s also worth noting Rich’s claim here is conjecture. We have no real reason to believe that moving local elections from odd years to even years will cause voters’ behavior to change, let alone change it in the manner Rich wants. There’s simply no way to require a voter to complete all of the lines on a ballot, and the assumption a significant number of them will has not been supported here with evidence.
@21: “…opponents say things they haven’t said…”
In the comments of a headline post which discussed outcomes of local elections in the Seattle area, you said voter suppression was a problem. I asked if you had any evidence for this in King County or Seattle. After a pause to process your (considerable and understandable) surprise that anyone would ever bother asking you for any evidence of any kind whatsoever to support any of your beliefs, you mumbled that any effort not to move local elections onto even-numbered years was evidence of this suppression. Another commenter noted the date of the election in no way hampers King County from sending every voter a ballot, or prevents any voter from completing and returning said ballot — you know, the common English meaning of the phrase, “voter suppression.” So, your complaint with me seems to originate in my responding to what you have indeed said, and asking you serious questions about it. If that constitutes my attempted “viewpoint suppression,” against you, then I suggest you examine what you believe, and whether any of it has any factual basis at all.
“…sweeping the homeless out of sight will magically solve the problem since we can’t see them anymore.”
The Stranger’s current ‘solution’ to the problem is to hope the campers magically start taking actions, such as accepting services offered, to improve their conditions. In the eight-plus years Seattle has tried this policy, most campers have not taken those actions, and their death rate from drug overdoses has risen rapidly over the last several years. Apparently, it is the “liberal,” or “progressive,” position simply to ignore these preventable deaths, because that is what the Stranger has relentlessly done for years. If it’s solely the “conservative” position to say policies should be based upon reality, especially when the policy in question contributes to needless suffering and death, well, then, I guess you’ve got me there. In that case, maybe you should question whether “conservative” is always the pejorative word you seem to imagine it to be?
It’s cynical to claim that policies designed to drive the homeless from the public square into the bushes where they can die out of sight of NIMBYs will somehow make them safer. Yet, you go one further by accusing your political enemies of being responsible.
I already told you that I initially didn’t claim that voter suppression played a role locally but communicating with you is like talking to a post. You can twist it into oblivion if you want but consciously picking elections dates to minimize turnout is textbook voter suppression. Also, there is clear proof that election turnout is much greater during even years despite your continued denial, which confirms Rich’s point about relative representativity. See, contrarily to you I didn’t cherry pick any points made: I addressed all your arguments in less than a 100 words. Geez, what a moron.
averagebob dear, I don’t think “the media” had as much to do with the reaction to crime as just what people were seeing with their own eyes. You can’t deny that we went through a rough spot there. Parks were occupied with homeless, petty crime was happening everywhere, Rainier Ave had an arson spate. We were a mess.
Ronald and Nancy; Welcome back, Raindrop. But I never evangelized against rural folks. I grew up in Iowa. My family had six farms at one time. I do get exasperated at some of the small town loudmouths, but I have always maintained that the Democratic party is foolish to ignore the rural areas.
@25: You immediately ran away from your original claim when I asked you for evidence to support it. However, you still very much wanted to throw the serious charge of “voter suppression” around. Therefore, you’ve now given us doubletalk about how keeping the current elections schedule is “voter suppression,” ignoring a) that the current, odd-year schedule was set long ago, b) permitted the election of enough “progressive” Council Members to allow them to drive the Council’s agenda for many years, and c) there has been absolutely no evidence presented to show that moving local elections to even-numbered years will increase voter participation in those local elections.
For many years, the Stranger has loudly supported Seattle’s policy of unrestricted camping, just as the Stranger now loudly opposes encampment sweeps. The previous policy of unrestricted camping, which did not require the campers to accept services, has led to a dramatic rise in deaths of homeless persons, especially from overdoses. Nobody who cares about the homeless can ignore this massive failure of policy on its own terms. The Stranger continues to do so, refusing to admit addiction plays a role in homelessness. The proven result is needless suffering and death amongst the very population the Stranger loudly claims to care about. Allowing camping therefore is the harshest and cruelest homeless policy imaginable, and I’m proud to have been one of the citizens who’ve long demanded it change.
@26 I believe you are mistaken Catalina. The only crime that the overwhelming majority of people see is in the media that conveniently forget to also mention that we are at a 40 year crime rate low while they hype every single occurrence for ratings (and some for politics as well).
@28: The Seattle City Attorney Office’s long-standing and abject indifference to street crime led to severe and chronic under-reporting of it. From 2019:
“By declining, delaying and ultimately dismissing nearly two out of every three cases transmitted by the Seattle Police Department, the City Attorney’s Office [under Pete Holmes] is adversely impacting businesses, chronic victims, police officers and vulnerable defendants.”
As a result, retailers and others downtown simply stopped reporting thefts, and even some assaults went unreported.
“…the under-reporting of chronic criminal activity can significantly impact neighborhood crime statistics.”
(https://downtownseattle.org/files/advocacy/System-Failure-Part-2-Declines-Delays-and-Dismissals-Sept-2019.pdf)
Hopefully, that has changed with Seattle’s voters’ election of City Attorney Davison, but the disconnect between crime statistics and what one sees on Seattle’s sidewalks, parks, and playgrounds may yet remain, just as Mrs. Vel-DuRay and I have noted.
@28 It really is gaslighting to pretend that because reported crime statistics are down people don’t have a right to complain/be concerned about public safety issues. You lose a lot of credibility if you want to say that it is all a result of media misinformation.