Comments

1
So how many of the 1275 does Oliver need to trigger an automatic recount?
2
@1

Votes for Moon: 32,504
Votes for Oliver: 31,282
Total: 63,786, Difference: 1222

Difference as a percent of total: 1.92%
0.5% of total: 319
Difference less 0.5% of total: 903 votes

That figure will change a smidge as the last few votes trickle in, but it's almost certain that an automatic recount will not be triggered.

The math is quite simple; you can get the raw data from the King County elections site and do it yourself to confirm if you want.
3
The remaining ballots will be counted soon. It doesn't make any difference if Nikkita concedes yet or not. Pressing her to concede right now is pointless.
4
Conceding would be ridiculous for Oliver. There are not enough votes for her to win. Why should she concede?
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@5: Durkan signed the consent decree to reform the Police Department. It would seem she would have an interest in getting it implemented. (Unlike the current incumbent, who seems to have cut a deal with the Guild to delay implementation.)

...like dumping the UW min wage study...

We don't need a study to know the number of restaurants in Seattle increased as Washington state's minimum wage did, from 1999 - present. For almost twenty years, it's been self-evidently obvious that a high minimum wage has had no negative effect on our local economy. The speculative study was just another concession by our current politicians to the local business community; we citizens just wanted $15 now.

If anything, our political candidates are consistently to the right of Seattle's electorate.
8
this ballot countdown is fascinating because people are clinging to the idea that Oliver was ever a viable candidate in the first place
10
For example one can open six new little restaurants with 20 employees each ....and say ..look new restaurants, we must be doing well. There are 120 new jobs.

I do love how you simply pull numbers straight out of your rectum, wave them around, and demand the rest of us tell you how good they smell.

An increase in the number of restaurants doesn't translate into more jobs or more hours worked.

That statement may be true, up to a point, but how many new businesses can be added without needing more employees?

When you can tell us how the number of restaurants in Seattle rose and rose and rose, year after year, as the state's minimum wage did, then you might have something.

Until then, you have the UW's speculative study -- and, of course, your entirely made-up numbers. (I'm sure you convinced yourself with them.)
12
@11

When there is so much published research available on the effects of minimum-wage increases, why are you relying solely on a working paper that hasn't even been peer-reviewed?
13
I think we need to be prepared for the moment the minstrals of the world are right, and recognize that a) it's probably going to happen someday if the minimum wage keeps going up, and it may happen sooner than we'd like. Because it's been so underutilized for so long, there's a lot of uncertainty about just how powerful an effective anti-poverty tool it can be.

But the UW study is far from sufficient or even particularly suggestive evidence we've reached that point. It's flaws are at least as great, if not greater, than the limitations of the Berkeley study. The limitation to single site employers only is enough to be pretty skeptical it has much value at all, and that's hardly the only major problem.

See this excellent EPI report on the many flaws, if you're interested:

http://www.epi.org/publication/the-high-…

(It's a shame the slog's criticism of the UW study was left to Mudede, who simply dismissed it because it didn't comport with his ideological and methodological priors. It's bad for other, far more compelling, reasons.)
14
@13

"it's probably going to happen someday if the minimum wage keeps going up"

I take your point, but that's one hell of a big "if," don't you think? I mean, when we survey the past couple-few centuries of world history, it's not exactly a phenomenon we see snowballing all over the place, is it?
16
@14--it's one of the easiest anti-poverty policies to sell people on (no tax increase necessary!) and it's overwhelmingly popular even among Republican voters (recall that the same Arkansas electorate that sent hard-core reactionary Tom Cotton to the Senate in 2014 by wide margins also voted Arkansas a ~33% minimum wage increase by nearly 2-1 margins). It's even more popular in Seattle. Since housing costs are likely to continue to increase increase, it's going to be seen by a lot of people as necessary. (And they may be right! But that doesn't mean it will always work.)
17
@15: your comment simply ignores all the tangible, concrete problems with the study identified by EPI. You're simply falling back on ideological priors just as Mudede did. Two sides of the same coin.
18
@15

Why are you relying solely on a working paper that hasn't even been peer-reviewed, when there are other papers available specifically studying Seattle's minimum wage increase?

Why do you seem to be entirely unaware of the findings of the "vast quantities studies and economic work done on what happens when you increase" minimum wages, specifically?

And what on earth do you imagine the word "incontrovertable" means?
19
@16

If you're aware of any campaign anywhere in America to raise minimum wages to something more than $15, could you point me to it?

From what I can see, the vast majority of America still seems to think even $15/hr is far too much to being paying the poor, research be damned.

Voters are in favor of some increase in minimum wages, but to date they don't seem to be terribly eager to raise them all the way to real purchasing power parity with those of 1970, let alone continue to crank them up after passing that high-water mark.
20
Well tensor, I believe it was you who simply pointed to "new restaurants opening" as proof positive the minimum wage increase was having not [sic] effect.

You're wrong. Read again what I wrote:

When you can tell us how the number of restaurants in Seattle rose and rose and rose, year after year, as the state's minimum wage did, then you might have something.

Not just "new restaurants opening," but a total increase in the number of restaurants. This is actually a weak statement of what actually happened, which is the number of restaurants increased on a per-capita basis.

If you want to claim the number of restaurant workers, or their net inflation-adjusted pay, declined even as the total number of restaurants increased, you can do the heavy lifting on that point. Since that result is very, very unlikely, you have a ready-made excuse for not bothering.

Also, here's a tip: when you find yourself simply making up numbers to support your point, you probably don't have a very good point.
22
@21

There are laws of economics? And they're equal in certitude to those of gravity and thermodynamics?

I did not know this.
23
@22: The laws of "thermal dynamics" are how mistral knows his "osculating" fan gets powered. :-)

Gawd, the only thing funnier than one of his pompous, condescending, fact-free lectures is when he stumbles and then face-plants during the dismount.
24
NIkkita conceded, and did so with the dignity and power she brought to what I'm sure has only been her first campaign.

Perhaps she will seek a city council seat next time, for whatever difference that might make-and it might not make much difference.

After all, council membership didn't seem to count for a damn thing to primary voters, and neither did tenure in the State Senate, nor even previous mayoral experience. The top two candidates have NEVER served in either electoral office or at any level of municipal governance.

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