In Monday’s ballot drop, Urbanist-endorsed Seattle City Council candidate Ron Davis continued to narrow the gap in his District 4 race against long-time bureaucrat Maritza Rivera. Following Friday’s drop, Davis had trailed Rivera by 409 votes or 1.5 percentage points. Today, he had the margin down to 303 votes or 1.1 points. Davis’s deficit was 11 points on election night, when more conservative candidates had leads across the board.
A few of those leads have crumbled since then, with two incumbents rebounding; first, Dan Strauss passed challenger Pete Hanning on Thursday, and then Tammy Morales passed Chinatown landlord Tanya Woo on Friday to take a 317-vote lead that has since grown to 398 votes on Monday. Strauss’s lead is up to 5 points.
The last remaining incumbent, Andrew Lewis, conceded on Friday to conservative challenger Bob Kettle, but the race has tightened considerably from the 12-point election night deficit, suggesting Lewis may have conceded a tad prematurely. Nonetheless, he does appear to be running out of runway. Lewis’s gap dwindled to 503 votes or 2.2 points on Friday, and it’s down to 465 on Monday.
King County Elections data shows that at least 368 ballots remain to be counted in D7. However, Lewis won only 55% of Monday’s drop, suggesting his late return momentum isn’t strong enough to make up the gap even if a few more ballots trickle in from the postal service.
In D4, at least 416 ballots remain to be counted, making a Ron Davis comeback mathematically possible, if somewhat improbable. Davis won 61% of Friday’s drop and 60% of Monday’s drop. He’ll need even greater margins to pull off the comeback.
As I noted Friday, Cathy Moore, Bob Kettle, Rob Saka, and Joy Hollingsworth will compose a new centrist majority on council aligned with Mayor Bruce Harrell and pledging to back his initiatives. The outcome of the late-breaking Rivera versus Davis race will determine if it’s a supermajority bloc.
