Friday, November 05, 2021

The Political Desk: The Dust Settles

 I wait a few days after the election to post the results because of the nature of elections in Washington State. We vote by mail, so it takes several days for the final results to be determined. Votes postmarked by the evening of election day need to be counted, and they can often swing the election. In most places, that will often swing conservative as older voters finally get around to voting on election day. In King County, it goes the other direction, and the more left-leaning, younger folk tend to get their ballots in under the deadline, so leading on election night is not a definite victory.

On the other hand, if you're ahead 10+ points on the first count, it is likely you're good for the position, in particular in elections with low voter turnouts (and we're talking about 33 40 percent of the eligibles this time out).

OK, so how did things turn out up here in the upper left-hand corner of the country? Here are the results three days after election day.

Advisory Vote No. 36 - Engrossed Second Substitute House Bill 1477 -  Maintained. Like, you know, it matters.

Advisory Vote No. 37 - Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 5096 - Repealed, but it still kinda close. Like, you know, it matters. (Whups, it flipped to Maintained. Still doesn't matter).

Advisory Vote No. 38 - Second Substitute Senate Bill 5315 -  Maintained. Like, oh, you know the drill.

King County Charter Amendment No. 1 Preamble - YES

King County Charter Amendment No. 2 Initiative, Referendum and Charter Amendment Timelines and Processes - YES

King County Executive - Dow Constantine

Metropolitan King County, Council District No 5 - Dave Upthegrove

Port of Seattle Position 1 - Ryan Calkins

Port of Seattle Position 3 Hamdi Mohamed

Port of Seattle Position 4Toshiko Grace Hasagawa (Both Mohamed and Hasagawa were slightly behind on the day one count, but made up the difference and are now ahead).

Mayor of Kent: Dana Ralph

City of Kent Council Position Number 4 -  Tina Troutner

City of Kent Council Position Number 6 - Brenda Fincher 

Kent School District No. 415, Director District No. 4 Awale Farah

Kent School District No. 415, Director District No. 5 - Tim Clark

Soos Creek Water and Sewer District Commissioner Position No. 4 - Darold Stroud

Soos Creek Water and Sewer District Commissioner Position No. 5 - Logan K. Wallace

Public Hospital District No. 1 Commissioner District No. 2 -  Jim Griggs (but, again, close).

Public Hospital District No. 1 Commissioner District No. 4 Monique Taylor-Swan (and this one actually made me nervous - Ms. Taylor-Swan's opponent ran as an open-communication and transparency candidate, but is reported by KUOW to be a stealth anti-vaxer and was at the Jan 6 rally that kicked of the insurrection. So now I guess I'm going to have to check out candidates' social media as well).

General overview? Incumbents did well, except where they didn't. A lot of work on the ground game from those who won - Mayor Ralph did a LOT of mailers and positive robo-calls ("We've done well and have more to do."). You want to win? You get out the vote. 

The Centrists did OK. I recommended some more progressive candidates, and they didn't do as well. But it is not like rooting for a sports team. The goal here is to put good people in office, and we're fortunate that in most cases that we had a choice of good candidates, with only a couple choices of good versus Oh-My-God.

One thing to whine about? The Stranger finally got outside its Downtown-shaped bubble and reported on us out in the hinterlands. On election day. Yeah, thanks a lot for that timely advice, dudes. 

And with that the Political Desk goes dormant for the winter. More (about other stuff) later.