Harrell spent part of his Election Day in front of a Rainier Ave Safeway (Image: Alex Garland)
Tuesday night’s first count included ballots from about 27% of registered Seattle voters. Turnout is expected to reach somewhere around 50%. You can view full results here (PDF), updated daily.
Seattle election watchers will be tracking results from Capitol Hill’s late-voting young core watching for the expected “swing to the left” from past years — but in the 2021 mayor’s race, they may not matter.
Seattle political veteran Bruce Harrell posted commanding results Election Night in his race against current City Council President Lorena González, the most expensive political battle for the office in the city’s history.
“We gotta bring Seattle back together,” Harrell said as he addressed the results. “This should be a unifying discussion.”
González, meanwhile, said there are still many votes to count. “We are used to being the underdog in every which way,” the candidate said as she spoke to supporters.
You can view the full results report from King County Election here (PDF). Tuesday night’s tallies were based on a count of just the first 132,000 ballots received from Seattle voters.
As of earlier Tuesday, officials said Seattle’s turnout had climbed above 39%. Predictions have the city turnout likely coming in around 50%. In 2017 in the last mayoral election, the city also produced a 50% turnout. King County Elections will update vote totals daily at 4 PM up until the ballot is certified just before Thanksgiving.
Results will be boosted — on a small, one to one basis — by efforts like those from progressive organizers including Democratic Socialists of America and Seattle Peoples Party volunteers helping voters print ballots outside the Capitol Hill light rail station on Election Day.
Misplace your ballot? Volunteers can print you a replacement today at kiosks in the following spots. (Be sure to mail it before 8pm!)
🌈Capitol Hill light rail station
🎓U-District light rail station
🕊Columbia City: corner of Rainier Ave S and S Ferdinand St pic.twitter.com/Jr7Sqz2U0z— Seattle DSA🌹 (@SeattleDSA) November 2, 2021
Harrell’s 65% showing was part of a strong performance for the more moderate, less progressive candidates in the city’s key races including business owner Sara Nelson posting a big lead over community organizer and activist Nikkita Oliver for citywide Seattle City Council Position 9 and Republican law and order advocate Ann Davison jumping well ahead of police abolitionist Nicole Thomas-Kennedy for City Attorney. The lone standout on the night for the more progressive side of the Seattle ballot was incumbent Teresa Mosqueda who declared victory on the night.
Harrell, who spent Tuesday meeting with voters outside grocery stores in Ballard and on Rainier Ave, told CHS he was anything but the “status quo” candidate in the race and is ready to “reimagine what a new police department looks like” and “revisit where a gun and badge shouldn’t go.”
“If you want status quo,” Harrell said, “I don’t want status quo.”
“Hopefully the opinion that I have is shared by at least 51% of the voters in this race,” Harrell quipped.
The González campaign marked the night at Hill City Tap House on Rainier Ave S while Harrell’s camp gathered in an event space in Belltown.
— Alex Garland (@AGarlandPhoto) November 3, 2021
The campaigns were boosted by unprecedented spending with both camps raising a combined more than $2 million. Another $2 million plus was raised by independent expenditure committees supporting the rival candidates. This was also the first year the mayor’s race was included in the city’s Democracy Vouchers program.
Harrell and González emerged from the August primary in a head to head battle for the mayor’s office. Harrell is a City Hall veteran with Central District roots and a track record of pro-business, moderate political views. González, meanwhile, worked as a civil rights attorney and as legal counsel to Mayor Ed Murray before taking a citywide seat on the city council in 2015 where she championed a vital new tax on large companies to help fund COVID-19 recovery and the city’s growing slate of social programs.
Perhaps the strongest distinction between the two campaigns emerged in their approach to the city’s homelessness crisis. González espoused housing and service principles in her homelessness plan while Harrell also called for more housing but said his plan would hinge on “a capital campaign” supported by charitable giving from the private sector, not new taxes. Meanwhile, Harrell said parks and streets should be cleared of encampments with increased outreach effort from workers to provide shelter and services.
Those messages, among others ,apparently resonated as Seattle faces a protracted contract fight with its police union, continued affordability and displacement challenges, and the challenges of reopening from pandemic restrictions.
Jenny Durkan’s exit was never in question in 2021. Leaving the door open for two candidates of color to take the job, the one and done mayor announced she intended to step down way back in December 2020 after leading the city through months of Black Lives Matter demonstrations, anti-police protests, and the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.
For District 3 voters, the politics will not end with November 2nd and the ongoing tabulation of the General Election results. Immediately following the General Election, expect the fight over Kshama Sawant’s council seat to flare up with special election ballots going out later in the month for a December 7th special recall vote only for District 3 citizens.
More Election Night Results
UPDATE 11/3/2021 4:15 PM: King County Elections tallied a small new count of 20,000 more ballots Wednesday, adding another 4 points of turnout to what has been sorted so far. With votes from about 31% of registered voters, the Election Night storylines still hold strong in Seattle. Victor declarations and concessions aren’t expected until Thursday or Friday as more sizable updates are made. At this point, only Mosqueda has declared victory.
Here are a few of the updated totals including one area of extremely close races in the city — the Port of Seattle.
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Jebus…these results make me kind of sad…especially Ann Davison. *shudder*
Kshama Sawant never had to make up these kinds of deficits.
Great news for the tax-paying and law-abiding citizens of Seattle.
Lots of democrats voting for a republican even.
The writings on the wall, Sawant. Pack your bags. The fickle Seattle voters have found another crusade: get the bum vagrants off our streets. In jail or housing. Either will do! But don’t worry Socialist, theirs always next term! I’m sure the voters will flip and start calling those same junkie drugged out losers our “neighbors on the street”! In the meantime, I’m hoping for a break from a trashy, piss and sh*ty smelling city and welcoming back the once beautiful and safe neighborhoods of Seattle.
Most of the candidates that were elected were very open that they were not going to do anything to improve the homeless situation and in fact would likely make it worse.
Thank goodness. People in seattle are burned out on progressive happy talk. We have significant problems. Many are self-inflicted. Hopefully a realistic and pragmatic mayor will help.
I voted for Lorena for SCC and she had many opportunities to right Seattle. She didn’t. She made things worse. Bruce got my vote.
The only equitable thing in Seattle these days is how the blight and crime affect everyone. If you are poor, being victim of a crime means you are doubly victimized. The tolerance for sex trafficking and assaults is mind boggling by the “progressive” politicians in this city. I think it’s time to reset what it means to be “progressive” and if too late, lose the lexicon entirely. It’s why Davison and Nelson are winning.
I realize that you’re a Safe Seattle bot, but Harrell was on the council longer (2007-2019) than Gonzalez (2015-), so he’s had even more opportunities to “right Seattle” that you apparently have forgotten.
Sure, I held my nose and voted for Bruce. Bruce may well be another Jenny, another Murray….. I don’t gamble, but voting in Seattle is one.
My hope is both Bruce and Lorena listen to the people and hear what they are saying. If Lorena gets it, she’ll get my vote again.
Of course you have to acknowledge the difference between what a moderate candidate can accomplish in a majority progressive SCC versus what a progressive candidate in a majority progressive SCC can. Gonzalez had all the support she needed to have her progressive policies enacted. What improvements have we seen? I think Harrell sucks, too, but Gonzalez had the tools she needed and the time to do it and she failed. I even had the opportunity to use her Homelessness Outreach line, and it was useless. I had to vote for the other candidate.
Hell yeah! Draining the Sawant!!!
This pun doesn’t even work. God why does the right always infiltrate community blogs?
God, why does the extreme left always get their feelings hurt and label someone “the right” when they have a different opinion? I will also be voting to Recall Sawant- I am an independent, but have voted Dem my whole life until this election when I voted for Davison. I wasn’t that fired up about voting for her, but felt she would do LESS damage to Seattle in 4 years than NTK. This is how broken Seattle politics is right now, voters get to choose between the least delusional candidate.
Exactly this. I would have voted for a hamster before I voted for NTK. Sometimes voting comes down to damage control….
This – hear hear! As nice as some (and I emphasize SOME) of the Sawant supporters are when they go around to try and drum up support for her, to me they lost all credibility with their divisive campaign slogans labelling everyone who doesn’t support her plans as right-wing, amongst other childish things. This isn’t infiltration, it’s democracy working by people voicing their opinions. How about you go the next step and engage in a constructive conversation that doesn’t just include throwing insults at each other? (Needless to say, that goes for everyone.)
BoCH: Agreed!
She is next!!! Seattle has hope!
This is a total repudiation of defund the police and “progressive” policies that attracted thousands of drug addicts into the city and caused vagrant encampments to grow like mushrooms in our public spaces. Hopefully the Democrats listen to the voters and course correct or the midterms will be a bloodbath. Nobody wants to live in a leftist dytopia, not even Seattle liberals.
Making houselessness illegal won’t make it go away. And it’ll only make these politicians’ seats flip.
You can continue to be flippant, but Defunding the Police did worse in black neighborhoods in Minneapolis than it did in the privileged, white neighborhoods. Same with progressive candidates like Maya Wiley in NYC, where Eric Adams did better in black neighborhoods and Maya did better in privileged white neighborhoods. Progressives need to seriously reckon with why their policies aren’t resonating with those in the communities they purport to help.
There are tens of thousands of people living in apartments in Capitol Hill. Nothing is illegal about not living in a house.
How nice of you to overly simplify it. I don’t think it’s about making it illegal to not live in an “approved” dwelling, but everything else surrounding those situations that frankly sometimes make them a nuisance. Which also includes spending money on providing livable conditions. For everyone. It is not wrong to want clean parks that everyone can enjoy. But sadly you can’t say that openly anymore without being labelled a right-wing nutter who only wants to drive the homeless away. I’m so over these one sided arguments …
“Houselessness” really?
Homelessness will never go away. And guess what, society doesn’t care! And why should we? Solving Homelessness does not help the Seahawks, help sync all my devices, or keep my bank account from being hacked.
Great news!! Now time to concentrate on booting Sawant out ASAP.
Seattle tired of the Progressive disfunctioning wackjob ideaology.
Very good all around. It appears that Seattle is realizing that running a city involves more than just activism.
This is a big shift. The fact that 3 sweeps by centrists are taking place and a near loss by Mosqueda speaks to a major change. A year ago centrist voices would have been shouted down and marginalized. This election shows that people are indeed sick of the woke rhetoric that has served to excuse the inexcusible. People can’t steal, they can’t camp in our parks and greenbelts. They can’t panhandle when there are jobs aplenty for anyone who is willing to show up.
Yes we can work on the structural issues in society but that is not a pass to those who misbehave. We have to move back towards personal agency and responsibility and put the blame on bad stuff where it belongs – on the bad actors regardless of party, life history or income.
Now the hard work begins for the reconstituted council, mayor and city attorney office. Next to fall will and should be Sawant in the recall. A clear message if it goes through. The voters have spoken. Let’s do it in December as well.
So are these election winners liberals or centrists? It seems it switches depending on what right wingers like to criticize or celebrate over just like how they talk about Biden. If they are trashing Bernie, then it is great Biden took over, this country rejects communism. If they are trashing Biden, then he is a commie.
The candidates currently leading in these elections are liberals, in my opinion. I know that is a dirty word for some people, so you can also describe them as more moderate or more centrist than the far left progressives they may have vanquished yesterday.
Liberal is only a dirty word to Republicans.
Actually Tom, liberals is considered a dirty word by many progressives, who consider liberals, or neo-liberals as they often refer to them, as akin to Republicans. I think that kind pf thinking is seriously misguided, but it is fairly widely held in these parts.
Not in my experience. There are many who think Democrat, liberal, progressive are interchangeable. It all depends on who you are talking to.
A”vital” new tax? Objective journalism much?
Just a reality check – the votes are still being counted, so either celebrating or having a fit and falling into it are totally premature.
Also, for anyone upset at the eventual, certified election results – try being a little introspective and try to figure out why your candidate loss and try to see things from the prospective of people who voted against your candidates. Seriously.
Lastly, quit demonizing each other. Just because I voted against your person or you voted against mine doesn’t make either of us ‘the enemy!’. Have empathy and try to see what you have in common and then learn how to compromise on the rest.
Great advice. I hope the currently winning candidates (Harrell, Nelson, Davidson and Mosqueda) and the remaining Councilmembers take the advice and figure out how to move forward respectfully together. The far left. Progressive bloc will still have a veto proof Council majority even if the current results hold up. That said, I look to Mosqueda to recognize the message sent yesterday and find ways to include the more moderate members’ concerns as legislation is crafted.
Can someone explain to me how Harrell intends to solve the homelessness “problem”? It’s not obvious to me that his approach will be all that different from Durkan’s. They’re both cut from the same cloth. Harrell will still be constrained by the limited number of a available shelter beds and housing units, correct? Per the court decision Martin versus Boise, folks can’t be evicted from public spaces unless there is a place for them to go. What about the mentally ill and the drug addicts? Does he have a plan to help them?
The first step is use the more conservative Supreme Court to our advantage and attempt (for a second time) to overturn Martin versus Boise. Where are the smoke detectors in these dwellings? Where are the certificates of occupancy? Where is the tightline to a sanitary sewer? Where are the property taxes?
Open congregate shelters and drug treatment facilities.
The middle way is the only way. Out with extremists on both sides.
I mean, IF they were actually smart ideas, great, but the extremists are about shocking and not based on anything practical or doing anything better.