Hudson on Election Night at Capitol Hill’s Jilted Siren (Image: Ananya Mishra/CHS)

In a race where the distinctions were more difficult to draw than in recent political battles here, it appears one challenger in the Seattle City Council primary did well with a critical District 3 voting bloc — late voters across the neighborhoods around Capitol Hill and the Central District.

First Hill’s Alex Hudson has drawn the primary results into a neck and neck race with the Central District’s Joy Hollingsworth for the top spot with strong showings in the two counts that have followed the first Election Night tally on Tuesday.

Hudson has so far claimed nearly 43% of the post-Tuesday counts — ten percentage points higher than Hollingsworth’s showing with later, presumably more younger and more progressive voters.

The tally as of Thursday night had Hollingsworth still leading in the top-two race by a half percentage point with thousands more ballots to count — D3’s turnout currently stands at 35% after reaching about 46% in 2019.

UPDATE: Friday’s count saw the gap narrow ever so slightly — the latest tally has Hollingsworth at 36.94% and Hudson at 36.51% with only 112 votes separating the two candidates.

It’s a pattern that echoes past showings by outgoing D3 representative Kshama Sawant who has made a habit of late-voter surges in her decade-long political career. In 2019, Sawant’s late counts turned around a massive Election Night gap in her defeat of chamber of commerce-backed challenger Egan Orion.

Sawant’s aggressive get out the vote ground game got much of the credit then. Hudson’s efforts have been quieter with small efforts including volunteers posted near Capitol Hill Station entrances on Election Day.

Sawant’s infamous 2019 “reversal of fortune”

The candidate’s positions and support are, of course, also key. CHS reported here on the implications of a Hollingsworth-Hudson race after their strong Election Night showings. The Black, queer, Central District cannabis entrepreneur and community leader is the mayor’s choice, winning Mayor Bruce Harrell’s endorsement and leading the way with more than $93,000 in financial contributions to her campaign as she has championed middle of the road progressive positions on housing, homelessness, and public safety and a tendency toward accessible takes and straightforward answers and solutions that veer toward a more centrist approach to the council. She has said she would support Harrell’s plan for increased spending on SPD staffing while calling for more accountability at the department. She has also been endorsed by the Seattle Times.

Hudson is the D3 Stranger candidate after winning the former alt-weekly’s endorsement and setting up a time-honored Seattle political battle. The Stranger vs. The Times trope will maybe never die — especially if races keep ending up like this.

Hudson’s positions, meanwhile, are more subtly aligned than D3’s previous late-voter champion but mostly fall slightly to the left of the Hollingsworth camp as she has spent her campaign time solidifying her position as a wonk with first-hand experience shaping legislation and the political process around it. Her experience leading groups like the First Hill Improvement Association and Transportation Choices Coalition plus advocacy for public transit and “upzones everywhere across the city” has set her apart from Hollingsworth who has also called for the development of more housing in the city but in more moderate forms like ADUs that are, she says, less likely to lead to displacement.

Despite her late-voter appeal, Hudson’s leftward position in this race remains pretty darned centrist. For example, she has criticized the council’s actions to pursue 50% cuts to the Seattle Police Department as a political mistake but said she would support moving more spending to community policing while increasing the number of officers available for patrol and neighborhood beats.

As for that late-voter strength, Hudson had a sense of her campaign’s success even on Election Night.

“People want to see candidates who are focused on people based solutions and who are willing to stand for what’s right,” Hudson told CHS. “They want effective change and that’s what we’re offering people and that’s what they’re excited about getting.”

Her campaign’s secret recipe? Nothing special. She said plans on continuing to build coalitions, participate in forums, and knock on even more doors.

Results will continue to come in over the coming weeks as King County Elections finalizes the totals. The general election will be held November 7th.

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