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Reversal of fortune? Sawant makes big leap with thousands of ballots left to count

Turns out, Kshama Sawant’s late voter surge will come early. In only the second day of updates since Election Night, the Socialist Alternative incumbent massively narrowed the lead of challenger Egan Orion.

The race now stands at Orion, 51.0%, Sawant, 48.6%. While he still commands a two-point, 739-vote lead, Orion is now racing against math — and it is not looking good.

** UPDATE 11/8/19: A new leader in D3 race: incumbent Sawant pulls ahead **

In the Thursday count adding about 6,000 new ballots, Sawant claimed an incredible 59.3% of the vote and has now shaved about 3 points off Orion’s Election Night 8.4-point lead.

King County Elections now says District 3 turnout has reached 58.2% with 43,520 ballots returned.

The Sawant leap mirrors in many ways her extreme bounce back against Richard Conlin in 2013, a comeback we noted in Wednesday’s update.

On Tuesday, Orion described his early 8.4% lead as squarely in the “OK” range for safe distance from the get out the vote strength of the Sawant campaign.

Thursday his campaign issued a statement about the tightening race. “We are hopeful our work on the ground will pay off so that District 3 can get the local representation it deserves,” Orion said.

Unfortunately this election remains too close to call and it is going to be close. Our campaign ran a people-powered campaign, funded by Democracy Vouchers and individual contributions that allowed us to speak with voters in every neighborhood and community across District 3. We heard loud and clear that neighbors want collaborative solutions rather than divisive politics, that centers on solutions to our city’s challenges rather than just sound bites. I got into this campaign to give a voice in City Hall to every neighbor rather than represent a national movement, but this election became a national referendum on money in politics. I share the community’s concern about how much corporate spending there was in this campaign. Win or lose, I am going to work to ensure our elections are driven by people and not big corporate spending. We are hopeful our work on the ground will pay off so that District 3 can get the local representation it deserves. Stay tuned!

King County Elections says it is planning two more updates on Friday.

In addition to the updates as King County counts new ballots, both campaigns will also work to “cure” ballots with issues like signatures that don’t match a person’s voter registration. Tuesday night, Sawant supporters implored the crowd to donate to support the ballot recovery cause.

 

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36 Comments
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Ryan A
Ryan A
4 years ago

That math looks really close- like just dozens of votes separating the two if Sawant’s grabs 60% of the last 4,000 votes!

Your vote counts!

Joe
Joe
4 years ago
Reply to  Ryan A

There are actually over 12000 votes left. If those results are anything like today, things will not be looking good for Orion.

Ryan A
Ryan A
4 years ago
Reply to  Joe

My math is coming from the 43,520 ballots returned minus the 39,624 ballots counted. Am I missing something?

Ryan Austin
Ryan Austin
4 years ago
Reply to  Joe

My bad:

Seattle Times says, “There are at least 12,662 ballots that have yet to be counted in District 3, according to King County Elections ballot-return statistics.”

I guess that accounts for ballots that haven’t arrived yet.

TitoP
TitoP
4 years ago
Reply to  Ryan A

I think you may be misreading the bar graph (which is a bit confusing). The green bars are the total current total, INCLUDING the gray bar of votes added since election night. Guessing you added those together to get the 39,624 votes counted.

In fact, its just the total of the 2 green bars (~30K) with the 12K+ still to be tallied

FreeMarketsFreePeople
FreeMarketsFreePeople
4 years ago

Shit. She’s going to send us all to the gulags.

Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos
4 years ago

It’s 8:38pm why aren’t you still working?? That AWS cluster running aynrandbumfights.com is down and I expect results by the morning!

K.S.
K.S.
4 years ago
Reply to  Jeff Bezos

First of all, if you want to comment on Marxism, sit on your bum and read some Marx. Second of all, what Mao, Lenin, and Stalin did has nothing to do with Marx, who had died way before any of those people rose to power.

You may not like Sawant, and you are free to, but, at least, try not to smear her and the organisation that supports her. Besides, there is a gulag system in the US as well; it is called Private Prisons. If you want to effect some significant change, tackle them, rather than showing the lack of knowledge you have on Marx and his writings.

CD Neighbor
CD Neighbor
4 years ago
Reply to  Jeff Bezos

Smear her? Disagree yes – I disagree at the very core that human nature can be ever be trusted to be in the main “honest and earnest” …. beyond that there is little point in quibbling about any of the details of how one might actually pull this off. I do not believe it’s ever been successful or can ever be successful because at it’s very root it’s counting on something that simply does not exist.

Do you deny that Sawant is a part of the SA and takes direction from them? Do you deny that Marxism is part of the beliefs of the SA? Do you feel that it is a smear to simply reveal as much?

Edward Everett
Edward Everett
4 years ago

Gee, same song second verse. This happened the last time. Didn’t they “find” some ballots under a fridge somewhere. How horrid!

Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci
4 years ago
Reply to  Edward Everett

Yup, that’s how it works every time! Those poor billionaire-class chamber of commerce crowd folks, like the Gates’, Bezos, Boeing and Nordstrom’s are always getting hoodwinked by the socialists who control all the levers of power in this town! Dag Nabit, they got us again!

Cd Resident
Cd Resident
4 years ago
Reply to  Edward Everett

Nah, just no one wants an Amazombie like Orion.

Typical Republican to hate on the poor and late voters.

CD Neighbor
CD Neighbor
4 years ago
Reply to  Cd Resident

You haven’t got the slightest idea of what the Republican platform actually is do you……

SL
SL
4 years ago
Reply to  Edward Everett

Anybody who happened to be driving or walking around Capitol Hill Monday and Tuesday could see how many Sawant volunteers were blanketing the area. Younger voters tend to vote closer to the deadline, and the Broadway-15th-Pike/Pine area likely has a lot more people sympathetic to Sawant over Orion. given the help and motivation from the Sawant volunteers, there were likely a lot of ballots getting mailed or dropped off in the last 12-16 hours.

All-mail balloting is making “election night” results less and less meaningful. The new reality is that some results won’t be fully know until days later.

Adam
Adam
4 years ago

Well that’s pretty much the worst case scenario.

CD Rez
CD Rez
4 years ago
Reply to  Adam

HAHAHAHAHA

So fun watching you Orion people cry

brenda Banks
brenda Banks
4 years ago

What a important nail biter! Go Kshama!

Jim98122x
Jim98122x
4 years ago

Well, you know the old saying. “People get the government they deserve”. And depending on your perspective, you can take that any way you want to.
https://youtu.be/eKgPY1adc0A

Cd res
Cd res
4 years ago
Reply to  Jim98122x

No one deserves the hell Orion would put us in

Jim98122x
Jim98122x
4 years ago
Reply to  Cd res

Now where did I leave that eyeroll emoji…?

James L
James L
4 years ago

nettles
nettles
4 years ago

Yay! We got this!

James in the CD
James in the CD
4 years ago

Orion did post on Facebook that he and his partner wanted a “latina woman” donor for their child.

He’s disgusting and doesn’t represent D3. Neither does Uncle Gentrifier.

NA
NA
4 years ago

His partner is Mexican and they wanted a baby that looked like them…

Mimi
Mimi
4 years ago

“Divisive politics” is a republican talking point. The problem in our society is too much concentrated power in the uber-wealthy and corporations. That is what needs to be addressed. Saying someone is “divisive” means they speak truth to power. Good riddance Flash Mob Organizer and receiver of Amazon money! You have no qualifications or even plans for issues you want to tackles. Just another ego-driven white man over-estimating your importance. Ego Orion, that’s your name.

Dudududud
Dudududud
4 years ago
Reply to  Mimi

So one of the qualities of Orion that you don’t like is that he’s white? Why does that matter?

Spike
Spike
4 years ago

“Speaking truth to power” is one of those no-effort things that some people say to feel like they are taking action, even though nothing changes.
Power already knows the truth.
If you want to effect change, you need to stop playing the games that the powerful have designed. I and you need to take action to directly solve the problems we see. It won’t happen overnight, and it takes a lot of effort. Those two facts are what cause people to want to take easy shortcuts, thinking, “If we just controlled the government, we could MAKE others do what we want!”
The instant someone seeks power over others, they become the thing they said they hated. It’s not just that power over others corrupts, but that power over others IS corrupt.
You can vote for the most benign person you can imagine, a person who will push forth the most progressive policies you’ve ever dreamed of. But once those people get power, they want to keep it. They will tell you at every election that they just need more time, more money and more sacrifice from you to bring about the change you have been hoping for.
They way you treat and talk about those who disagree with you shows your true self.

Mimi
Mimi
4 years ago
Reply to  Spike

$15/hr min. wage is a very real change.

Spike
Spike
4 years ago
Reply to  Mimi

A $15/hr artificial pay raise doesn’t change the power structure at all. In fact, it reinforces the power structure, because it makes the employee even more dependent on not only the business owner, who they hope does not cut their hours to make up for the loss of profits, but also on the government to enforce the new law, should the business owner choose to try to avoid it.
Helping people learn skills to earn more than $30K/year gives them more power. But, as I noted, it takes time and effort, so most people won’t do it.
Even so, there are those who >will< put forth the effort: Many of the trade unions in this state pay apprentices $25/hr while they are learning – and those programs still have lots of openings.

FreeMarketsFreePeople
FreeMarketsFreePeople
4 years ago
Reply to  Spike

Well said