Seattles nationally known socialist City Councilmember, Kshama Sawant, has mounted a dramatic comeback in her race against challenger Egan Orion, surging to a lead Friday after trailing to Orion by a wide margin on election night.
The incumbents share is now 50.5%, up a sensational 5 percentage points from election night, thanks to thousands of votes that were cast by Tuesday night but werent counted right away. The election-night results were based on about 50% of Seattle ballots, and most of the rest have now been tallied.
A win for Sawant would mean defeats in five of seven contests for candidates backed by Amazon and the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, which more than a year ago vowed to use the 2019 elections to reshape the council.
Sawant gained a lot of ground Thursday, watching her share climb from 45.6% Tuesday to 48.6%, and ballots tallied Friday afternoon have put her over the top. King County Elections is scheduled to add most of the rest of Seattles votes with a Friday night count.
There are about 5,000 ballots that have yet to be tallied in District 3, according to ball0t-return statistics.
More progressive candidates, such as Sawant, tend to surge in Seattles vote-by-mail elections as later ballots are counted. That may be because many younger voters wait longer to cast their votes and because many younger voters have left-wing politics.
Turnout has reached nearly 59% in District 3, which covers dense neighborhoods such as Capitol Hill and the Central District and more suburban areas such as Montlake and Madison Park.
None of Seattles other races saw candidates change position Friday afternoon, though many leaders saw their advantages increase. All seven of the councils district seats were up for grabs this year.
The District 4 contests between Alex Pedersen and Shaun Scott continued to narrow, with Scott closing a huge election-night gap. The democratic socialist now has 46.2%, up from 41.9% Tuesday. District 4 includes Eastlake, Wallingford, the University District and Northeast Seattle neighborhoods such as Bryant and Laurelhurst.
Fridays votes extended leads for District 1 incumbent Lisa Herbold, Tammy Morales in District 2, District 5 incumbent Debora Juarez, Dan Strauss in District 6 and Andrew Lewis in District 7. Lewis trailed Tuesday but passed Jim Pugel Thursday.