King County certifies primary results, field now set for November election

Primary election results in King County have officially been certified, with each race now narrowed to two candidates ahead of November.

Gap in fundraising opens up between Seattle City Attorney candidates

According to the latest data, 2021’s primary yielded nearly 35% turnout countywide, which is “right in line” with other off-year elections, according to local officials. Comparatively, turnout rates in King County for 2017 and 2019 primaries came in at 34% and 35%, respectively.

Today we certified the Primary election!

We ended this election at 34.9% turnout w/ nearly 500k voting & returning their ballots. This is right in line with what we saw in previous elections, with turnout in the 2019 Primary came in at 35% and the 2017 Primary was 34%.

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— King County Elections (@kcelections) August 18, 2021

With results finalized, the race for King County Executive will come down to incumbent Dow Constantine and state Sen. Joe Nguyen, after the former won the primary by a 52% to 33% margin.

In Seattle, the mayoral election will feature the city’s former and current council presidents, with Bruce Harrell leading all primary candidates with 34% of the vote, followed by Lorena Gonzalez at 32%. That will leave another 34% of the vote up for grabs in the November general election.

The winner in Seattle’s Position 8 City Council primary surprised few, with incumbent Teresa Mosqueda taking in nearly 60% of the vote. Perhaps more shocking was civil engineer Kenneth Wilson advancing to the general election with 16% of the vote, edging out local activist Kate Martin (who had been favored in polls to take the second spot behind Mosqueda).

Another election, another late surge for Seattle’s progressive candidates

With Gonzalez leaving her Position 9 at-large council seat to run for mayor, a wide open race saw local progressive activist Nikkita Oliver narrowly win the primary with 40% of the vote, followed by Fremont Brewery co-founder Sara Nelson at 39%.

The largest upset of the primary came courtesy of the race for City Attorney, with 12-year incumbent Pete Holmes failing to advance to the general election. Seattle will instead choose between public defender Nicole Thomas-Kennedy and local attorney and arbitrator Ann Davison in November, who finished with 36% and 33% of the vote, respectively, followed by Holmes in third at 30%.

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