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Today's Election Results: Bellevue Margin Tightens, Forch's Hopes Fade
It's unusual for so many races to be undecided more than a week from election day, but some close races are only getting closer.
Specifically, I'm thinking of the race for an open city council seat in Bellevue, where Kemper Freeman's chosen candidate, Aaron Laing, is now just 59 votes behind retired attorney John Stokes in a race that will almost certainly be decided by a hand recount.
In Seattle, SDOT manager Bobby Forch's challenge to two-term city council incumbent Jean Godden appears over, with a 2,892-vote gap remaining between Forch and Godden. Unless turnout ends up much, much higher than the 53 percent forecast by the King County Elections office, there simply aren't enough votes outstanding for Forch to make up that 1.82-point gap.
In the last outstanding school board race, challenger Sharon Peaslee continued to widen the margin of victory between herself and incumbent Peter Maier. Peaslee now has 50.14 to Maier's 49.49 percent---a 945-vote margin that makes Peaslee the presumptive winner.
Outside the immediate Seattle area, a couple of close races provided some drama. In Bellingham, former state representative Kelli Linville, who narrowly lost her seat to Republican Vincent Buys last year, is the new mayor of Bellingham. In another close race, Linville ousted incumbent Mayor Dan Pike; her current margin, with fewer than 200 votes to count, is 164 votes.
And in Woodland, a small town in southwest Washington, the race for an open council seat could be decided by a coin toss. Currently, the two candidates for the office, both 70 and retired, are two votes apart.
Specifically, I'm thinking of the race for an open city council seat in Bellevue, where Kemper Freeman's chosen candidate, Aaron Laing, is now just 59 votes behind retired attorney John Stokes in a race that will almost certainly be decided by a hand recount.
In Seattle, SDOT manager Bobby Forch's challenge to two-term city council incumbent Jean Godden appears over, with a 2,892-vote gap remaining between Forch and Godden. Unless turnout ends up much, much higher than the 53 percent forecast by the King County Elections office, there simply aren't enough votes outstanding for Forch to make up that 1.82-point gap.
In the last outstanding school board race, challenger Sharon Peaslee continued to widen the margin of victory between herself and incumbent Peter Maier. Peaslee now has 50.14 to Maier's 49.49 percent---a 945-vote margin that makes Peaslee the presumptive winner.
Outside the immediate Seattle area, a couple of close races provided some drama. In Bellingham, former state representative Kelli Linville, who narrowly lost her seat to Republican Vincent Buys last year, is the new mayor of Bellingham. In another close race, Linville ousted incumbent Mayor Dan Pike; her current margin, with fewer than 200 votes to count, is 164 votes.
And in Woodland, a small town in southwest Washington, the race for an open council seat could be decided by a coin toss. Currently, the two candidates for the office, both 70 and retired, are two votes apart.
