On Tuesday, Urbanist-endorsed progressive challenger Katie Wilson expanded her narrow lead over Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell, which had sat at just 91 votes after Monday’s ballot drop. She now leads by 1,346 votes or 0.49%. With very few ballots remaining, Wilson is on the cusp of avoiding a machine recount, which occurs below the 0.5% threshold.
“We’re going to wait for all of the ballots to be counted, but I think we won this race,” Wilson told the Seattle Times.
In Tuesday’s drop, another 6,121 votes were counted, and Wilson took 61% of the batch, her best margin yet. Across King County, officials report 2,300 remain to be processed, with the lion’s share likely in Seattle.
Update: On Wednesday morning, King County Elections said they expect to count around 1,400 accepted ballots in Seattle on Wednesday afternoon. These ballots are a combination of late arrivals trickling in from the postal service and challenged ballots that are being rectified.
Before Monday’s drop, election officials reported roughly 1,800 Seattle ballots they could not count due to a lack of a signature or a lack of match to the signature on file. By Tuesday’s count, that number had shrunk to just under 1,500 as voters rectified signature issues and succeeded in getting their vote counted.
The number of curable ballots from Seattle has edged further downward since this morning. There's now just under 1,500 curable ballots, which continue to skew younger.
— The Urbanist (@theurbanist.org) November 11, 2025 at 6:48 PM
[image or embed]
Ballot curing efforts
In Washington state, these ballots are often “curable.” To cure a challenged ballot, a voter should reach out to King County Elections to verify their identity with a valid signature. Voters can track their ballot status on King County’s ballot tracker to see if their ballot has been challenged.
This race could come down to your vote! As of yesterday, we were just 91 votes ahead. Additional votes will be counted today. Do your part and check on your ballot with King County ASAP: info.kingcounty.gov/kcelections/…
— Katie Wilson for Seattle (@wilsonforseattle.bsky.social) November 11, 2025 at 9:45 AM
[image or embed]
Both campaigns continue to mount ballot curing efforts. Statistically, challenged ballots tend to come from younger voters, who generally break for progressives. This suggests Wilson would hold the advantage in cured ballots, though her campaign is taking nothing for granted.
“We’re just inside the mandatory recount threshold, but as we continue to cure ballots with our huge turnout of volunteers, we’re hopeful that we can put the campaign behind us soon and focus on governing the city,” Wilson campaign manager Alex Gallo-Brown said in a statement. “Katie will be a mayor for the entire city, and Seattle residents are going to expect results. We’re eager to begin that process.”
The road to a comeback
On election night, when about 118,000 ballots were tabulated, Harrell claimed a seven-point lead. Wilson gained ground on Thursday, closing the gap to 5.7 points by grabbing 51.6% of that batch. Friday’s ballot drop was even more favorable to the progressive challenger. Wilson trimmed Harrell’s lead to 1.9 points or 4,300 votes by winning nearly 55% of Friday’s batch.
Seattle elections have long had a pattern where the early vote leans conservative, while the late vote skews toward progressives. Progressive candidates have closed large margins to pull off late comebacks before, which gave Wilson supporters hope, despite their early disadvantage.
Since Washington is a vote by mail state, election officials often count less than half of the ultimate votes on election nights, with the rest tabulated over the coming week. Despite a three-week voting period, many voters procrastinate until the last day of the election. It can make for dramatic comebacks, like it appears Wilson may have just pulled off.
Author’s note: I serve on The Urbanist Elections Committee, which endorsed Katie Wilson.
Update: At 3:38pm, the article was updated to note that Wilson had expanded her lead to 1,976 votes or 0.71 points. This is out of machine recount territory. She won 66% of the Wednesday batch. This article was updated on Wednesday morning with the latest figures for challenged ballots.
🚨🚨 Just in: Katie Wilson has expanded her lead in the Seattle mayor race. She is now leading by 1,976 votes, which means that the race is no longer in automatic recount territory.
— The Urbanist (@theurbanist.org) November 12, 2025 at 3:27 PM
[image or embed]
