8:10 PM: In the race to see who will take the State Senate seat from which 34th District Sen. Sharon Nelson (D-Maury Island) is retiring, the first results are in:

Joe Nguyen – 27,440 – 57.4%
Shannon Braddock – 20,373 – 42.6%

8:17 PM: Nguyen has already spoken to his jubilant supporters at Drunky’s Two Shoes in White Center; we’ll add the video when we return to HQ. (ADDED– Here’s his reaction right after the results went public:)

9:24 PM: Braddock’s campaign tells us she will have a statement later.

Nguyen’s presumed victory makes history – he will be the state’s first Vietnamese-American legislator and the 34th District’s first legislator of color. He is the son of refugees, born in White Center, raised in Burien, now living in West Seattle, a manager at Microsoft, father of two, husband of a Highline Public Schools teacher. Personal backgrounds were the main differentiating factors between Nguyen and Braddock in the campaign; on the issues, they were nearly identical, both self-described progressive Democrats.

ADDED WEDNESDAY MIDDAY: This statement from Braddock was sent to an e-mail list of supporters and media:

There’s a common saying that you have to ask a woman seven times before she’ll seriously consider running for office. In my experience, it couldn’t be truer. Growing up I was keenly aware that most elected officials were men, and their support staff were women.

When I was asked to run for the State Senate I knew the sacrifices it would mean for me and my family as a single working mom. It had to be a family discussion. When I asked my two sons what they thought they said “sure.” But when I asked my eleven-year old daughter Kate if I should run she became giddy — jumping up and down clapping her hands. Ever since I announced she’s been talking about how she would like to run for office someday too. These are the types of examples we can set for our young girls when we run.

So thank you.

Thank you for knocking on doors, donating, and calling voters in support of our vision of a better Washington. And lastly, thank you for believing in me. We left it all on the field and, in spite of the outcome, I believe we ran an amazing campaign.

While we may have lost this race, last night was still a decisive win for women’s representation across our country.

We saw a record number of women run for office and get elected this year — including 256 women running for Congress in the General Election and countless more in local elections like ours. While I may not have had many women role models in elected leadership when I was growing up, I’m beyond thankful my daughter will. I wish Joe Nguyen the best as he steps into service for the 34th District as our State Senator.

8:09 PM: Here are first results for the big city levy on tonight’s ballot – the Families, Education, Preschool, Promise levy, a combination and expansion of two expiring levies:

Yes – 164,083 – 68.5%
No – 75,299 – 31.5%

10:26 PM: Mayor Jenny Durkan has thanked voters for supporting the plan; here’s her statement. In part, the levy passage fulfills a commitment she made in West Seattle on her second day in office (WSB coverage here) – promising to expand what has been the 13th Year Promise program, one year of “free” tuition at South Seattle College (WSB sponsor) for graduates from some Seattle public high schools.

(WSB photo, November 2017 at South Seattle College)

And as we wrote this, we learned the mayor will be back at SSC tomorrow morning – with Seattle Colleges Chancellor Shouan Pan and Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Denise Juneau – to celebrate the levy’s passage. We’ll be there.

Four statewide initiatives on tonight’s ballot – each is linked to its results page on the Secretary of State website, and the results are coming in:

INITIATIVE 1631 (pollution)

INITIATIVE 1634 (prohibiting some beverage/food taxation)

INITIATIVE 1639 (guns)

INITIATIVE 940 (policing)

5:21 PM: That’s the view from West Seattle as Election Day gives way to Election Night. Before the first local/state returns come in after 8 pm, we’ll have some running coverage of the final hours of voting … and campaigning.

We start with the lone local open seat on the ballot. Above, supporters of 34th District State Senate candidate Joe Nguyen were sign-waving on the Andover overpass before sunset; this morning, candidate Shannon Braddock‘s supporters, including (below left) Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon and County Executive Dow Constantine, were sign-waving a bit further west, at 35th/Fauntleroy:

As noted in our morning highlight list, the candidates are due at Election Night parties in a few hours. Meantime, you have a bit over two and a half hours to vote – here’s the info you need if you haven’t done that yet; we’ll be off to check the scene at the ballot dropboxes in a bit.

6:29 PM: First, a stop at Sound & Fog, which has long been planning an election-night watching event:

Proprietor Justin is projecting election coverage onto one of his shop’s walls, and as our photo shows, more than a few patrons have their own screens. You can stop in any time before 9 pm. Next, we hopped over to the new King County Elections ballot dropbox in The Junction:

An elections staffer who’s here to help said they’ve been getting a steady stream in the past hour or so. There are two special 5-minute parking spots in the lot (behind KeyBank on the south side of SW Alaska west of California) for voters, though some are hopping out of their cars on SW Alaska instead. You can drop your ballot in a county box until 8 pm (here’s the full countywide list – we’re headed next to West Seattle’s other dropbox, in High Point).

6:54 PM: At High Point with a little over an hour to go:

Here, a sheriff’s deputy as well as KC Elections workers. And portable lighting, which we noticed during an afternoon stop:

This box is next to the library (3411 SW Raymond) parking lot but you can also pull up curbside on eastbound Raymond. The full list of dropboxes countywide is here. After the voting ends at 8 pm, the county is expected to release its first and only round of election-night results around 8:15 pm, and we will have separate stories on those.

7:55 PM: Just awaiting the returns. One more ballot-box photo from about an hour ago:

The crew at High Point really wanted to be sure everyone was aware of the time!