As votes continue to be counted, Seattle City Council races take shape

We’ll soon know who will be competing for seven Seattle City Council seats in the November General Election.

Forty-five candidates ran in Tuesday's primary but only the top two vote-getters, a total of 14 people, will move on.

After thousands of trips to ballot drop boxes, newspaper endorsements, mailboxes full of candidate brochures and election night parties, we have some early results to talk about.

Though, don't get too excited.

"It's important to remember that there are still thousands of ballots left to count, we live in a vote by mail state, and we give people a lot of time to turn in their ballots," said KUOW editor Cat Smith. "Counting takes time, too. So over the next few days, we'll be watching round after round of ballot drops come in. And that'll change some of the numbers that we're seeing so far."

Smith said that regardless of who ultimately wins or loses these city council races, the amount of candidates who are new to politics has the potential to shape city and state policy in ways that are unknown.

"With these new faces, these are new ideas," said Smith. "It's really significant because of what's at stake here. We know that Seattle policy sometimes serves as a model for the rest of the state, other municipalities watch what happens on the city council."

Smith spoke with Soundside about the election results. You can listen to that interview by clicking the play button above.