29 Replies to "ELECTION 2015: Shannon Braddock leading Lisa Herbold in West Seattle & South Park's first City Council District 1 race"

• Joe Szilagyi November 4, 2015 (6:42 am)

  Election math update:

  *****

  District 1 has 60,991 registered voters.

  As of last night, King County had 17,441 returned ballots for us.

  Last night’s declared results:

  Shannon Braddock
  52.92% – 6,023 votes

  Lisa Herbold
  46.48% – 5,290 votes

  Shannon and Lisa difference: 733 votes, 6.44%.

  Last night declared total ballots on hand/back to County Elections: 11,381 ballots, for an 18.6% return rate. I’ve seen estimates of a 30%

  King County general election voter turnout for general elections since 2000: 61.85%.

  King County general election voter turnout for general elections since 2000 if you only count off and odd-years like this: 48.66%.

  I’ve seen good sources who I trust estimate this year ending up around 36%, so we’ll likely see another 10,500 to 17,800 votes added to last night’s totals.

  Last night’s results are literally only 50% of the outcome!

  *****

  This is NOT over. No one should be declaring victory or conceding defeat, even in there minds and hearts, candidate or supporter. Every day still matters. Commence stress drinking of coffee, beer, wine, bourbon, all of us… we’ll be getting new ballot updates daily.

  Don’t forget… crazy stuff can happen in politics, or not. Just like sports. The NBA’s Dream Team lost in the Olympics. The Boston Red Sox came from 0-3 down to beat the Yankees 4-3 and go on to win the World Series. DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN!

  “It has been four days since the last ballot drop on Friday evening, in which Sawant gained 1,458 votes on incumbent Richard Conlin, winning 58.5% of the new votes tallied. Sawant has gained steadily on Conlin from the original 6,136 vote margin Election Night, and now trails by 1,237 votes. Should last week’s trends hold, Sawant will pass Conlin in either the 4:30 or 8:30 ballot tally releases tonight.”

  http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2013/11/sawant-conlin-race-nears-re-count-territory-check-your-ballot/

  “Oops! One week after 16-year Seattle City Council incumbent Richard Conlin claimed an election night victory with a seemingly invincible 7.5 percent margin, his socialist challenger, Kshama Sawant, stunningly grabbed the lead. When The Stranger went to press Tuesday night, Sawant was narrowly leading Conlin by 41 votes, 49.91 percent to 49.88 percent.”

  http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/kshama-sawant-pushes-ahead-of-conlin/Content?oid=18201682

• john November 4, 2015 (7:08 am)

  Go Shannon Go!

• JoB November 4, 2015 (7:26 am)

  last election cycle it looked like Sawant had lost until the ballots finished trickling in…
  i think it’s going to be a suspenseful week.

• Z November 4, 2015 (7:57 am)

  Odd that the Stranger of all publications is calling Braddock the “current winner” (as opposed to “leader”), given their coverage of the Sawant race last time…

  • WSB November 4, 2015 (8:11 am)

    After more than 30 years of covering elections in four states and multiple types of media – including national web for the endless Bush-Gore saga in 2000-2001 – I know better than to declare anybody a winner unless it’s an overwhelming margin that’s highly unlikely to turn. The Harris-McLaren race (75% to 25%), for example. But the tired old habit of “projecting” winners on Election Night persists, despite by-mail voting and the fact only one ballot run is made public on Night 1, so you’ll see that here and there. We’ll get a much better sense when the second round of numbers goes live this afternoon. Back in the day, Election Night was when most votes were counted, because by 8 pm, most votes were cast, so we’d get updates far into the night, and election coverage would last into the early-morning hours … TR

• M November 4, 2015 (8:40 am)

  Go Shannon! Please pull this off. With Sawant winning (..what?) we need someone that can tame down her socialist agenda.

• Neighbor November 4, 2015 (9:00 am)

  Wow, all the complaining West Seattle does over development and not enough infrastructure and as of right now the candidate who basically was sponsored by the developers is ahead.
  At least with Lisa we stand a chance of having some voice and an ear that listens.

  Go Lisa!

• thisisagooddeal November 4, 2015 (10:42 am)

  Neighbor, you’ll get that with Braddock too. All of this painting of her as “for sale” and beholden to developers is unfair nonsense. But I guess that’s politics for you, even in our little pond.

• Peter L November 4, 2015 (11:23 am)

  Excellent result, I hope it holds up. We NEED rational minds to counter the socialist bloc.

• Neighbor November 4, 2015 (11:59 am)

  @thisnisna good deal-yeah, I get that. however, on this case it’s really shocking when you follow the money. But I agree we are in for a huge give away with either if we a as community don’t get involved.

  And as for the fear of the socialist agenda…you like your roads, your fire department, and probably your Medicare so enough with your fear tactics. Unregulated capitalism has destroyed the social fabric of this country. When you have over 99% of wealth in 1% of the population you have a society that is teetering on the brink of collapse. It cannot function, history reveals this every time. Every time there is such a disparity there is a revolution. Personally I would like a civilized solution, you know, one that builds community instead of destroying it which is what we all should be working for. Enough with the Regan creed of I got mine so screw everyone else. It has gotten this county no where. By every measure the majority of Americans are worse off today because of neo liberal economics.

• East Coast Cynic November 4, 2015 (12:11 pm)

  If Shannon wins, I’m much more concerned about her fighting to insure that West Seattle gets light rail and or other crucial expansions of our transit infrastructure than countering the “socialist”. Fight for our needs, first and foremost.

• Diane November 4, 2015 (12:27 pm)

  agree Neighbor; for YEARS, 100’s have come to this site to complain about the prolific over-development without sufficient infrastructure; currently a slight majority have voted for the candidate who is HIGHLY funded by those same developers; completely defies logic
  ~
  thanks Joe Szilagyi for the detailed breakdown; last night, we were trying to remember the Conlin lead % on election night and how many days until the win for Kshama; the Sawant comeback and WIN after many days of us-lazy-ass-liberal-last-minute-voters’ ballots finally being counted (after Conlin declared victory); that gives us hope that our hero Lisa will also make a comeback and prevail once all the votes are in

• BJ November 4, 2015 (12:34 pm)

  Jeez, just from those two videos alone I feel like I’d be getting more bang-for-my-buck with LH! Go Lisa!

• Peter L November 4, 2015 (12:47 pm)

  Diane, all blog comments tell us is that those opposed to development complain about it. The silent majority who are pro-growth speak with our votes. We also write and call our elected officials, which is much more effective than complaining in blog comments.

• DW November 4, 2015 (1:43 pm)

  Lisa H is just as bought and paid for as any candidate out there. Only difference is, she’s owned by the social service agencies who have so much clout in this town it’s scary. Difference is, developers at least pay taxes!

• West Seattle since 1979 November 4, 2015 (1:57 pm)

  Peter L, thanks for speaking up for us. The thing is, people are moving here because the economy is good, at least for people trained to do certain types of jobs. There is not enough housing to accommodate all who want to move here. Because a lot of the people moving in have more money, landlords feel hey can raise rents sky-high and still get renters.

  We Need More Housing! We can’t truth back the clock and we can’t ask Amazon and others to take their jobs and move out of Seattle. More and more and more housing needs to be built until there is a glut and rents will stabilize.
  We should probably have been building before.

  More density also means eventually we might qualify for more services such as light rail. My coworker who lives in Roosevelt area said that their neighborhood agreed to more density in exchange for getting a light rail stop. Im sure it was more involved than that, but it’s something to think about.

• Catherine Adams November 4, 2015 (2:56 pm)

  Have my fingers crossed for Lisa Herbold. She came by to chat more than once. Never saw Braddock here in So. Park

• Rick Sanchez November 4, 2015 (4:30 pm)

  And we hit 15k ballots counted as of a few minutes ago, Shannon leads Lisa 52.43 to 47.06%

• WSB November 4, 2015 (4:38 pm)

  We’ll be posting those separately. Looks like they’re planning a third count in a few hours.

• redblack November 4, 2015 (6:59 pm)

  DW: comparing incomes, developers pay far less in taxes than the working poor. and the working poor far outnumber developers. and developers receive far more from the government than the working poor.

  so take that anti-american propaganda elsewhere.

• -------- November 4, 2015 (7:12 pm)

  Developers barely pay any taxes what are you talking about????? Shannon is supported by creeps like Triad who also support Burgess. Jesus Christ I hate Shannon so much it makes my skin crawl. Lisa is real and honest and landlords are scared of her because she is so helpful to tenants!!! Sawant gets things done. We wouldn’t have a $15 minimum wage if it wasn’t for her. Shove your capitalistic free-market bull—t elsewhere.

• Guy Olaon November 4, 2015 (7:19 pm)

  Yess!! Finally some big changes in West Seattle! So excited! ^sarcasm

• redblack November 4, 2015 (8:30 pm)

  ——: easy, tiger.

  capitalism is a good and fine thing, as long as it pays for the least fortunate among us and prevents our nation from looking like nigeria, for example.

  tax evasion and avoidance are contrary to our values as americans and should be criminal.

  let’s not be as hypocritical and short-sighted as our anti-taxation brethren.

  and let’s find a way for developers to pay their fair share instead of passing their taxes off to consumers and renters.

• thisisagooddeal November 4, 2015 (9:08 pm)

  “Jesus Christ I hate Shannon so much it makes my skin crawl.”

  Wow. Comments like that certainly cast a bad light on Herbold supporters.

  I know Shannon and she’s a really nice person. Smart too, and cares a lot about West Seattle. I asked her about the developer money and her priorities and she was disappointed that people think she’s a developer toady or something. She told me that her priorities first and foremost are the residents of West Seattle, regardless of where the campaign money (that she didn’t even ask for) is coming from, and I believe her.

  The crazy thing is that the candidates are probably in agreement or mostly in agreement on 95% of the issues. We have two really good candidates; I don’t understand why some commenters are treating Braddock like she’s a mashup of Ann Coulter and the Koch brothers.

  I voted for Braddock but if Herbold wins it’ll be fine. In that case for me it’ll be choice 1B instead of choice 1A. We should feel lucky instead of trying to tear one candidate or the other down- and that goes for both sides.

• leftywholovesBraddock November 4, 2015 (9:40 pm)

  Why the hate on Shannon? I’m a lefty and I’ve know Shannon for years. She is a feminist, a progressive and an exceptional person. Good lord, the haters don’t know the first thing about her. It reminds me of when people pick a sports team and can not ever like the rival, no matter how good they are. Grow up.

• M November 5, 2015 (5:36 am)

  It’s still depressing to me that our only choices are Left or Really Left.

• redblack November 5, 2015 (5:53 am)

  thisisagooddeal/lefty: maybe the campaign contributions made a bad impression. for me, it’s nothing personal toward the candidate.

  but i have to vote against whoever receives campaign money from big seattle business. i know braddock probably isn’t a toady, but for whatever reason, she got big money’s endorsement.

  http://www.runforthemoney.org/big-business-for-braddock.html

• wsea98116 November 5, 2015 (12:14 pm)

  Why would these businesses and corporations donate so much money to a city council election campaign? What do they have to gain from helping one candidate win over the other? Corporations and businesses don’t “give” money away, they make calculated expenditures in order to increase profit margins. So, what is the “big money” objective here? Can someone please help me understand this…?!

• redblack November 5, 2015 (4:58 pm)

  wsea: i believe you’re spot on.

  big downtown bidness is going to schmooze and support anyone who will keep their taxes and governmental interactions to a minimum. and they pay less in campaign contributions and accounting and lawyering and such than they would to a city run by people who want them to pay their fair share.

  it’s a business investment that saves them money.

Sorry, comment time is over.