Brady Walkinshaw held his election night party at the Comet (Image: CHS)

Brady Walkinshaw got a small but critical boost to his primary ballot count Wednesday as he strives to keep his bid for Congress alive.

On the second day of ballot counting, which tends to skew more liberal, the Capitol Hill resident surpassed Joe McDermott by just under 600 votes after trailing him by less than one point on Tuesday.

“We’ve been the underdog in our race all along. As our race stands, it’s just too close to call,” Walkinshaw said in an email to supporters where he also asked for volunteers to oversee ballot counting.

Walkinshaw had 21.5% of the vote after Wednesday’s count to McDermott’s 20.9%. For McDermott, the results are obviously discouraging, especially since Walkinshaw is typically seen as the more progressive of the two and can therefore expect to widen his lead in the coming days. Walkinshaw gave up his 43rd District state House seat to run for Congress last year. McDermott, a King County Council member, joined in shortly after.

Whoever advances in the top two primary still won’t have an easy road ahead. Pramila Jayapal easily clinched the number one seed to November, taking 40% of the vote by the second day of ballot counting.

The race puts a rare opportunity on the line to represent Seattle in Congress. Longtime representative Jim McDermott (no relation to Joe) announced his retirement earlier this year. The 7th District covers the majority of Seattle and Capitol Hill, but leaves out a substantial section of the city south of E Madison.

Nicole Macri and Dan Shih easily held on to their respective first and second place positions in the 43rd District state House race. The second day of ballot counting all but assures the end of the road for Sameer Ranade, Scott Forbes, Marcus Courtney, Thomas Pitchford, and John Eddy.

Republican Zachary Zaerr won’t make it to the general election either, but managed to keep his third place position Wednesday despite having practically no ground game and no name recognition in the race.

Proposition 1, which would renew and expand Seattle’s affordable housing levy, will easily pass after posting a 68% lead on Wednesday. Read the rest of our coverage from Tuesday’s primary here.