Election 2013: Kshama Sawant widens Council Position 2 lead

4:39 PM: Just in – today’s ballot count shows Kshama Sawant widening her lead over incumbent Councilmember Richard Conlin to 402 votes; see the new numbers here.

P.S. The one-sheet with every race in the county is here. Next ballot count, about this time tomorrow.

ADDED 5:16 PM: A media-advisory excerpt from the Sawant campaign, with some context and the numbers as they’ve shifted since Election Night eight days ago:

The new numbers include Sawant receiving 3,344 more votes (52.10 percent) and 2,983 new votes (46.48 percent) for Conlin, bringing the overall total to 83,095 votes (49.99 percent) for Sawant and 82,693 votes (49.75 percent) for Conlin. After trailing by 6,136 votes on Election Night, Sawant is now ahead of Conlin by 402 votes, with still about 20,000 remaining ballots to count.

There are several different aspects to today’s numbers compared to recent ones:

1) It is a somewhat smaller count, with only 6,418 new votes counted this time, comared to over 8,000 Tueday and over 22,000 last Friday;

2) The number of write-in votes spiked this time (91), depressing both candidates’ percentages; and

3) While Sawant got a majority of votes for the seventh consecutive drop (see below), it was at a lower percentage than the last four, perhaps indicating a greater mixed of earlier, challenged ballots in the count – earlier votes tending to favor Conlin.

Sawant Conlin

Election Night (Tues. 11-5) 38,116 46.13% 44,252 53.56%

Day Two Afternoon (11-6) 7,862 49.69% 7,949 50.24%

Day Two Evening (11-6) 3,385 50.21% 3,342 49.57%

Day Three Afternoon (11-7) 6,950 52.79% 6,174 46.90%
Day Three Evening (11-7) 5,747 55.92% 4,528 44.07%
Day Four Afternoon (11-8) 7,852 55.29% 6,338 44.63%
Day Four Evening (11-8) 5,021 58.45% 3,567 41.52%
Day Five (11-12) 4,818 57.38% 3,540 42.16%
Day Six (11-13) 3,344 52.10% 2,983 46.48%
Total 83,095 49.99% 82,693 49.75%

Nonetheless, unless her percentage declines further, Sawant is still on track to avoid a recount. In close elections, a machine recount is triggered when candidates finish within half a percentage point and 2,000 votes of each other. For the 185,000 overall votes expected in this race, Sawant would need a margin of 926 votes to exceed the .5 percent threshold needed for an automatic recount. She is currently 524 votes short of reaching that threshold. Sawant would need to win only about 51.31% of remaining non-write-in votes to avoid an automatic recount, still well below her percentage in today’s returns.

Jeffrey November 13, 2013 (5:26 pm)

Seems like a re-count is in the offing.

I’m rooting for Conlon to be FIRED!

In the meantime, me and my dog, Clyde, are going for a drive. Clyde has a thing for Fatburger, and he loves riding in the car.

Chocolate labs are the best, but I’m biased.

Get out and drive your cars, it is the American thing to do, or something.

DW November 13, 2013 (5:52 pm)

What a joke. Our city is a laughingstock

wsdad November 13, 2013 (6:26 pm)

PEOPLE…This Woman is a socialist..Do you really understand that..USSR..How soon we forget

onion November 13, 2013 (6:27 pm)

I’d be interested to know how she defines socialism.
Socialists have been elected in other cities, and I believe even to congress. Perhaps someone has more info on this.

JanS November 13, 2013 (6:41 pm)

oh, my….the sky is falling, the sky is falling…we are doomed. A woman who is not a Repub or a Dem is perhaps going to be on the city council. Our city is going to be trashed ! Whatever will we do ! (wringing hands)

Question November 13, 2013 (6:45 pm)

How she defines socialism? Jesus does anyone read the voters pamphlet? Go read what she says in it. And this is who we want to lead Seattle? If so it’s time for me to move.

Come on people! November 13, 2013 (6:47 pm)

She was hired by evil forces to infiltrate Seattle!

Civik November 13, 2013 (6:48 pm)

What’s up with the numbers for I522 on that site?

Wasn’t it further behind than it’s showing… especially since it shows 522 ahead?

WSB November 13, 2013 (7:02 pm)

Civik – what I linked is just the King County vote total. 522 is statewide. If it were a local measure, it would be winning. Statewide, only a few counties, including King, voted for it.

Dave November 13, 2013 (6:51 pm)

Yes COMMIES, RUSKIES, let’s all couch everything in 1950s terms since that’s what right wing whackos are trying to return us to. No thanks, I would like to live in a 21st century progessive society, as in progress.

JoB November 13, 2013 (6:54 pm)

wsdad..
USSR = communism
china = communism

England, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Canda, Australia,
all some form of what you call socialism

Civik November 13, 2013 (7:19 pm)

Yeah, trying to read on my tiny phone. Missed it until after I posted.

Genesee Hill November 13, 2013 (7:37 pm)

JoB:

Much of Europe is considered Welfare Capitalism. Not Socialism.

There are zero communist countries in the world. Zero. Certainly not China and Russia in this day and age. The USSR is kaput. It has fragmented.

JayDee November 13, 2013 (7:39 pm)

At the worst, she stirs the pot and is not elected to a second term. Best, she learns and understands when to be dissenting. If not we will vote her out. The younger adults need to be involved to keep Seattle alive. If they see eternal dissent doesn’t work, great. Better that than same old same old (with emphasis on old). My two cents.

Lura Ercolano November 13, 2013 (7:43 pm)

I wonder how many of the socialism-is-evil posters are refusing to receive any SOCIAL security payments?

Jeffrey November 13, 2013 (7:45 pm)

Clyde, my dog, almost choked on his chew toy from laughter after reading the bit about progressive society equating to progress.

And those right-wing wackos trying to return us to the 1950s meme… good grief that is half-baked re-heated noise from the last presidential cycle.

Never mind that the right-wing wackos are counter-balanced by the left-wing wackos.

And Socialism is the bogeyman? C’mon maaan. If Ms. Sawant is duly elected are you afraid she will use mind control to sway the votes of other council members?

People! Take a hit off the smelling salts and step back into reality. Public office for the most part is about GETTING PAID.

Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Socialists, Communists, Green Party, American Free… whatever.

Follow the money.

And the only bogeyman out there, if there is one, is that person you see in the mirror.

Me and Clyde are going for another ride. We’ll honk and wave if we see ya, and Clyde might even flip you a bone.

Dave November 13, 2013 (8:11 pm)

Yah bra, you’re too cool for all this political stuff maaan it’s all the work of Babylon, Jah Rastafari bra!

Sadly this stuff affects people lives but keep shinin’ it on…

Jeffrey November 13, 2013 (8:51 pm)

Dave,

The political stuff only impacts people as they allow it to.

Too cool? No.

Rastafari? No.

Pothead? No.

I’m a middle aged white dude with short cropped hair, some grey in there, who you couldn’t pick out of a crowd of business-types, who works at GETTING PAID, and enjoying the fruits of my labors with those nearest me.

That’s just me.

I simply see the pissing match over partisan nonsense as so much Tom Foolery and wasted time when, to me, there are easily 1,000 better things that one can do with their time on this rock.

Like taking a drive to Fatburger with Clyde.

Sure if we were oppressed here in these United States, well then I would take a different view of course.

But Clyde and I, we’re exercising our freedom.

Daldart November 13, 2013 (9:01 pm)

A socialist has represented Vermont in the US Senate for the last seven years and the sky hasn’t fallen in. No matter who’s mayor, and who’s on the city council, Seattle will continue to have the worst-paved streets in America. As Timothy Leary once remarked, “If voting could change things, they’d make it illegal.”

ttt November 13, 2013 (9:41 pm)

I’m guessing many people voted for her to just get some new people in the council…

mike November 13, 2013 (10:00 pm)

Genesee Hill, there are many communist countries that still exist. Just because the USSR is not around dies nor mean other communist countries have gone away. Laos, ever heard of it?

JTB November 13, 2013 (10:03 pm)

Can we seriously expect our fellow Americans to have an informed exchange about what socialism is and is not when so many still aren’t able to appreciate that one of the parties to the Civil War represented a socio-economic reactionary movement? Finance capitalism has little to fear, I fear.

Jeffrey November 13, 2013 (10:27 pm)

Civil War?

Socioeconomic reactionary movement?

Informed exchange?

I’ll go with informed exchanged, Alex.

What is a conversation where one party browbeats another party with ideological minutiae and when the listening party disagrees is then met with name calling and other invective.

56bricks November 13, 2013 (10:28 pm)

Remember that Margaret Thatcher quote thing again. You just don’t get it, do you?

ACH November 13, 2013 (11:15 pm)

Hope she refuses to accept a good portion of her fat city councilperson paycheck. Wouldn’t be fair of her to be paid so well while so many others struggle to get by.

WSB November 13, 2013 (11:44 pm)

She said that near the start of her campaign, IIRC. It’s at the top of her “about” page: http://www.votesawant.org/about

Diane November 14, 2013 (12:06 am)

yep; I’ve personally heard Kshama Sawant repeat throughout her campaign that she will not accept the out of scale high salary paid to city council; she will take a salary same as the average Seattle worker; “At a time of budget cuts, the Seattle City Council pays themselves nearly $120,000 a year, more than any other council in the U.S. except LA! If elected, I will only take the average worker’s wage and donate the rest to building social movements.” – Kshama Sawant (I absolutely love this woman)

KarmaBaby November 14, 2013 (5:29 am)

It’s amazing how the American Neoliberal model has succeeded in brainwashing people into the Capitlaism = Good, Socialism = Evil argument. The entire world is either capitalist or some form of dictatorial revisionist state and look how broken society is everywhere?

Socialism is not what the USSR was, nor is it what has existed in Cuba, Venezuela or China. You’ll find that the CWI which Sawant is a member of has published detailed criticism of those regimes.

The October Revolution in 1917 lead to incredible gains for working class people all across Russia and Europe. It was a progressive step towards a more equal and egalitarian society. But it was stopped short by what was effectively a counter revolution lead by Stalin. Since then, Capitalist states always use the example of Stalinism as an argument against Socialist, even though it was never really socialism at all.

But whatever, keep getting your opinions from Fox News, keep ignoring the history books, keep living in your bubbles while society crumbles all around you because of the systematic failures of capitalism.

thankfully the next generation is waking up.

We need more socialist leaders like like Sawant and Ty Moore.

KarmaBaby November 14, 2013 (5:45 am)

mike, you think Laos is communist, just because the government says it is?

Laos has been selling off sectors of the economy to private investors since 1986!!!

Dictatorships are, by their very nature, independent of any real ideology. The ideology is used as a means to generate national pride, in the same way far right capitalist states do, but its all smoke and mirrors. There is a centered elite in power in Laos, just as there is in China. This is the exact antithesis of socialism.

Laos is not Socialist by any stretch of the imagination either socially or economically. It would be more accurate to call it a capitalist dictatorship.

But, if anyone is to blame for the existence of the current regime in Laos, it is the U.S. for bombing the sh-t out of it and killing MILLIONS of people in the region during the Vietnam War. Is it any wonder that under those conditions of extreme imperialist oppression from countries like the U.S. and formerly France, that people would turn in desperation to an extremist dictatorship?

No, not at all.

redblack November 14, 2013 (5:55 am)

ttt: exactly. but if the only way to get money out of government is to vote out entrenched incumbents regardless of their political persuasions, then that’s what we have to do.
.
hopefully big downtown seattle money will have one less politician to do their bidding.
.
and say what you will about socialism – even though half of you don’t know the first thing about it except what you learned from the pinkertons and mccarthyism. but does anyone really believe that the infinitely corruptible system of graft that we have in place in america is any better?

Question November 14, 2013 (6:57 am)

Diane,

Let’s see how u feel about her in a couple years. Lots of politicians have said lots of things in campaigns that people “absolutely love.” And then they get elected….. Be prepared to be disappointed.

Jeffrey November 14, 2013 (8:26 am)

KarmaBaby,

People act in self-interest, rational or irrational, there is always going to be someone “in charge” who has power, which corrupts.

It seems to me that idealogues such as yourself can’t grasp this simple truth.

Whatever the case I think all viewpoints should be heard and considered. It’s a free country! Democracy is stronger when our collective freedoms and rights are exercised.

ACH November 14, 2013 (12:32 pm)

Thanks, WSB. I am glad she will be donating a portion of her salary to various causes. But, I won’t lose sleep over her making ends meet living off of the average working wage. Her husband is an engineer at Microsoft and pulls in OVER $100,000 per year (disclosed on her campaign finance paperwork).

JoAnne November 14, 2013 (1:29 pm)

In India, there are millions of orphaned children roaming the streets. They are exploited every day for prostitution, pickpocket rings, etc. Many die of starvation.

In India, the only people helping these children are foreigners. No one there cares.

When I see this woman doing something–anything about the hideous conditions in her own country, I will believe her ranting about “social justice” problems here in Seattle.

JanS November 14, 2013 (2:45 pm)

I am truly amazed at some of the comments here. Joanne…do you have any idea how many children in your own country go to bed (if they have a bed) hungry every night? How many children live on the streets? are forced into prostitution? Who in our own country does anything about that? You? Me? Your neighbor? Our so-called leaders? Yet people are judging this woman, who is a citizen of this country. And she hasn’t even taken office (yet). We sometimes are a pathetic nation, a pathetic people, with our noses in the air, feeling better than others, judging others. For all you know she and her husband may give profusely to the cause in India. We really have no idea.

AJP November 14, 2013 (2:46 pm)

JoAnne, this is her own country. She’s a naturalized citizen.

Brian November 14, 2013 (2:58 pm)

And the winner for most xenophobic statement of the day goes to JoAnne.

Sorry, there’s no prize for this achievement.

KBear November 14, 2013 (3:03 pm)

JoAnne, she’s a U.S. citizen. This IS her own country.

Diane November 14, 2013 (5:26 pm)

11-14-13, 4pm vote count

Kshama Sawant winning…..leading by 1148 votes

ahead by more than .5%

Kshama Sawant 50.17% 86223 votes

Richard Conlin 49.50% 85075 votes

Write-in 0.33% 560 votes

Total 171858

WSB November 14, 2013 (5:43 pm)

thanks, Diane, I have way too much local-local news in queue right now to publish a separate on this again today – Tracy

bolo November 14, 2013 (5:34 pm)

ACH, she says “To clarify my personal situation, I’m separated from my husband. We’re officially still married but have been separated for close to six years. I am not sharing in my husband’s income.”

from http://www.votesawant.org/sawant_responds_to_conlin_attacks

If that makes any difference to you.

Citizen November 15, 2013 (10:31 am)

If the woman is able to run for office, she must be a citizen. What is it then that makes a person make a statement like that? The assumption that you have to look “white” in order to be assumed a citizen? I’m actually glad that you wrote your comment. It helps my argument about how much racism and ignorance still exists.

Sorry, comment time is over.