Katie Wilson extends lead over Bruce Harrell in tight Seattle mayor race

SEATTLE - The latest ballot drop has put Katie Wilson 1,346 votes ahead of Bruce Harrell, having come back from as much as an eight-point deficit last week.

By the numbers:

As of 4:00 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 11, King County Elections showed Wilson with 50.08% of the vote while Harrell had 49.59% of the vote.

Wilson lagged behind for days after the election, but rapidly made up ground as last-minute ballots were tabulated. By Monday, Wilson pulled ahead by a narrow 91 votes.

Seattle has 505,393 registered voters and 277,860 ballots have been counted.

Latest WA election results

The backstory:

On election night, the incumbent Bruce Harrell led Wilson by around 7.14%. The day after, Harrell gained another percentage point.

While Harrell had the early lead, FOX 13 Seattle Political Analyst Sandeep Kaushik said last week that last-minute voters skew progressive, and the majority of the Seattle ballots left to be counted are expected to favor Wilson.

"You know, we've increased our lead from yesterday, and we are actually just under the threshold where we can get out of the automatic recount territory. I think it's likely that we will increase our lead," Wilson told FOX 13 Seattle when we caught up with her on Tuesday. "So I really think that we will continue to inch ahead over the last few kind of straggling ballots that get counted, and you know, we're going to wait for everything to be counted, but I think, I feel that we won this race."

Who is Bruce Harrell?

Harrell ran in 2021 on a platform of public safety and boosting police funding, following the 2020 George Floyd protests in Seattle. He also ran on addressing homelessness, though the Wilson campaign has accused him of grossly inflating the numbers of affordable housing units built under his watch.

Harrell helped Seattle navigate out of the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw an influx of jobs and federal dollars return to the city, as well as the sunsetting of pandemic-era policies like the eviction moratorium and mask mandates.

Before he was mayor, Harrell served as Seattle City Council President from 2016–2020, and before that as a Seattle City Councilmember from 2008–2016. He previously ran for mayor in 2013 against incumbent Mike McGinn, then dropped out to endorse Ed Murray. In 2017, in the wake of several child sex abuse allegations, Murray resigned and Harrell served as acting mayor for five days.

Harrell has been endorsed by key Democrat politicians in Washington, including Gov. Bob Ferguson, Attorney General Nick Brown, U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, former King County Executive Dow Constantine, former mayors Jenny Durkan, Greg Nickels, Norm Rice and Wes Uhlman, and former governors Jay Inslee, Gary Locke, Christine Gregoire, as well as several labor unions.

Harrell's campaign issued the following statement regarding the recent swing in the mayor's race:

"We are grateful to our volunteers who are working to ensure that every vote is counted. This is important work, and essential in a close race."

Who is Katie Wilson?

Wilson ran on a platform of increasing affordable housing, addressing homelessness, reforming landlord practices and limiting homebuying by private equity firms, climate action and "Trump-proofing" Seattle.

"The homelessness crisis is going to be a very, very top priority for me. We have a aggressive timeline in the first six months of next year, leading up to the FIFA World Cup to really tackle the homelessness crisis as it affects the downtown core and adjacent neighborhoods," said Wilson.

Before her mayoral campaign, Wilson was perhaps most well-known locally for co-founding and serving as executive director of the Transit Riders Union. The Wilson campaign has touted her role in designing the ORCA LIFT program.

Wilson has been endorsed by several former Seattle City Councilmembers, community organizers, labor and union leaders, as well as organizations like Humane Voters of Washington, Transit Riders Union, UAW 4121, WFSE Local 1495, Seattle Subway, Seattle Bike Blog and various other political and non-profit organizations.

"We’ve been expecting this kind of progressive surge as more votes are counted, but it’s nice to be in the lead," Wilson said regarding Monday's results. "We have hundreds of volunteers out helping people to cure ballots." 

What's next:

Election Day marks only the first ballot drop of many, and county elections offices will be tabulating thousands more votes in the coming weeks.

According to King County Elections, there are currently 1,700 ballots from Seattle with signature challenges.

Katie Wilson encouraged voters to track their ballots to make sure they count while speaking on her sudden lead in the Seattle mayoral race.

When will the next batch of King County election results be released?

The next major update for King County election results will be Wednesday afternoon.

King County officials remind the public that information on vote margins needed to pass various ballot measures can be found on the county's November General Election page.

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