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McGinn concedes to Murray

By Rob Mackay
Published  November 7, 2013 11:07am PST
FOX 13 Seattle



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SEATTLE -- State Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, maintained a seemingly insurmountable double-digit lead over incumbent Mike McGinn in the Seattle's mayoral race, new election results showed Wednesday night. By Thursday morning, Mayor Mike McGinn acknowledged that he would not be able to come back and conceded the race to Murray.

The second day of vote-counting by the King County Elections Department showed Murray with a 55-44% lead over McGinn -- 64,177 votes to McGinn's 50,966 votes.

McGinn scheduled a news conference for 10:30 a.m. Thursday to likely concede the race.

McGinn, who was elected as the city's 52nd mayor in November 2009, found himself in the position of underdog in this race.  He was dogged by criticism that he was a somewhat thorny mayor -- willing to go to the mat for issues he vehemently supports -- and he's faced criticism concerning downtown safety and the police department's use of excessive force that brought the Department of Justice to town to try to rectify the situation.

Murray, 58, was first appointed to fill a vacant 43rd District seat in the state House of Representatives in October 1995 and was re-elected  every two years until he decided in 2006 to run for the state Senate seat then held by Sen. Pat Thibaudeau, who eventually dropped out of the race and gave Murray a clear path to the state Senate.

In his first session in the Senate, 2007-08, Murray was appointed vice chairman of the majority caucus and in the 2009–10 session, he served as chairman of the majority caucus. After having been re-elected unopposed in 2010, Murray was appointed chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee for 2011–12.

Murray, a married gay man, has also been very active in advancing LGBT rights. He led the push for an anti-discrimination law protecting gays and lesbians, a measure that finally passed in 2006 after three decades of debate. He was also the main sponsor of legislation creating domestic partnerships, approved in 2007, and then the law legalizing gay marriage in the state in 2012.

In February 2013, Murray was a sponsor of an assault weapons ban bill, SB 5737, which did not pass.

For a list of the candidates and issues on the ballot, go the King County website. After that you can see King County results here, county results here and statewide results here.