Sawant on Election Night: “Socialist politics are here to stay.” (Image: Alex Garland for CHS)
Kshama Sawant’s Election Night lead over challenger Pamela Banks is only growing after Wednesday’s second count of ballots received in Seattle’s first ever District 3 race.
Sawant’s total is now sniffing 53%.
Tuesday night, the incumbent Sawant held a more than five percentage point lead over Banks in her bid for reelection to the Seattle City Council. Tonight, the lead has stretched to six.
“If you look at the issues that are most urgent issues in District 3… it’s the problem with the affordable housing crisis, the problem we have with traffic gridlock and the need for world class mass transit,” Sawant said, connecting her local victory with the broader platform of her Socialist Alternative party. “What stronger referendum are you going to find on what the people of District 3 want than the election itself?”
“We worked hard and we are going to continue to work hard until all those ballots are counted,” Banks, who actively courted Democratic Party support during her campaign, said Tuesday night. “I’m going to be the comeback kid.” Banks told CHS that she hoped her personal campaigning would help swing the district’s late voters her way.
In the latest count, 2,465 D3 ballots were counted with Sawant claiming more than 1,300 and further stretching her lead.
UPDATE 11/5/2015: Following Wednesday night’s tally, D3 has climbed above 44% turnout.
Given those numbers and figuring a small follow-up climb to 46% turnout, Sawant would need just over 5,135 of the remaining 11,269 likely ballots to claim victory — around 46%. Given that she has so far claimed 53% of the vote, that shouldn’t be a problem.
King County Elections officials say it will continue posting updated counts daily at 4:30 PM. You can view all the King County results here.
How unfortunate.
Great!
Now the rich will have to pay taxes and my rent will be cut in half!! :P
Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if your landlord’s (aka ‘the rich’) property taxes goes up, which they will, so will the rent your landlord charges you.
Once Sawant implements rent control all those problems will vanish right?
(@joyce this is all sarcasm)
Indeed, sarcasm. I believe the rich already pay taxes. I’m also a homeowner so I’m not worried about rent for myself (I am for others tho).
Can’t believe people fell for her pandering.
I am worried about property taxes and I’m not rich.
Hurrah If you live on Capitol Hill. I guess all other neighbor hoods in D3 aren’t as important
You might want to look at the URL and if you are still feeling that way you might want to start your own.
What an uncomfortable spot I occupy. Caught between Sawant and her more radical leftist policies and Tim Eyman and his destructive initiative for profit machine. And I thought mail in ballots were supposed to making voting easier thereby stimulating participation? Perhaps the lack of election day drama causes many to “forget” about the whole thing? In any case, the mail in ballot system is an epic failure based on these participation results.
No, don’t blame the mail-in ballots. If anything, they’ve made voting infinitely easier.
If the Democrats/Republican oligarchy were truly sincere about boosting voting turnout (and they’re not because low turnouts keep ’em in power), this is what they would do:
1. Make Election Day a federal holiday on a Saturday or Sunday.
2. Make voting MANDATORY…through small fines, tax credits, or whatever.
3. Make mail-in ballots postage paid.
4. Publicly finance elections, and limit the election season to short period of time…say, 3 months.
I’m proud Seattle has passed the Honest Elections measure, which gives voters $100 to contribute, while severely limiting corporate donations. Now with 100 bucks to splash around, voters will be a lot more motivated to vote, if for no other reason than to see if “their guy” won, like fantasy football or something. Which is fine by me.
I think the big story is Sawant allies, except O’Brien are all losing.
Just pointing out the Sawant allies Herbold, Maddox, Grant all lost. burgess will likely remain council president.
Sawant haters got their hinders handed to them on a platter at the ballot box. Happily, ballots and not CHS Blog comments are what really matter. W00t!
Although I opposed Sawant, I never really expect her to lose. She is running in the most left district in Seattle. I am pleased it was close and that her allies took it on the chin. And just so you know, I will vote for Bernie Sanders if he is on the ballot next Spring. With Sawant it is her style that is most offensive.
It is discouraging, so say the least, that only 1 out of 3 registered voters in D3 managed to vote. I wonder what the outcome would have been if everyone voted?
My husband and I afford to live in Seattle by renting out part of our house. We already absorbed a property tax increase last spring, we will be raising our tenants rent this spring. I’m not a big developer, just trying to make ends meet.
FWIW, more than 1/3 of ballots received for D3 haven’t been counted yet. 28k ballots received so far, but only 18k votes recorded for the 2 candidates combined. Very unlikely to change things, but still …
She had an incredibly good political machine for such a local race. Hopefully she can turn that energy and organization into doing the work of D3, rather than trying to make a name for herself on a statewide basis.
We have real issues in D3 (beyond just the cost of rent), and we need a representative that can collaborate with the other council members and get things done.