'It's a coin flip.' Experts say Seattle mayor’s race still too close to call

Don’t count her out just yet.

Activist Katie Wilson continues to gain on incumbent Bruce Harrell in the closely watched race for Seattle mayor. As of Friday’s ballot count, Wilson was just 4,300 votes behind Harrell, narrowing his early lead. With about 45,000 ballots left to tally, independent analysts weren’t ready to call the race.

“It’s a coin flip,” said Ben Anderstone, a political consultant who didn’t work with either campaign.

“The next few days are going to be really decisive for Wilson,” he told KUOW.

Counting will pause over the weekend and resume Monday, according to Halei Watkins, communications manager for King County’s elections department, which tallies ballots for Seattle races.

A surge in late voting helped Wilson make up a larger deficit against Harrell from earlier in the week, according to Andrew Villeneuve, executive director of the Northwest Progressive Institute, a left-leaning policy and research nonprofit.

“Those late voters saved their bacon,” Villeneuve said.

“Katie Wilson has some runway here. She has some room left to make up this gap, but it’s not a given — we don’t know for sure that she will,” he said.

Bruce Harrell’s 116,435 votes put him just 1.8 percentage points ahead of Katie Wilson’s 112,135 on Friday.

Election officials in the state release ballot counts in daily batches. In Seattle, later vote counts tend to favor more progressive candidates like Wilson. On Tuesday, Election Day, Harrell was ahead of Wilson by 7 points. His lead jumped a point on Wednesday, surprising poll watchers who expected Wilson to gain ground in later ballot counts.

Then, on Thursday, Wilson gained some ground on Harrell, giving him an edge of just under 6 points.

Adding to the tension surrounding the race, Decision Desk HQ, an election results provider, projected on Thursday evening that Harrell would win, even though 100,000 ballots remained to be counted. The firm walked back that projection on Friday. (KUOW contracted with Decision Desk for embeds displaying results from the primary and general elections this year.)

The Harrell campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday evening.

The Wilson campaign released the following statement to KUOW: “This is an incredibly good sign. We were looking for this kind of drop and expect this trend to continue. We are continuing to use every tool available to us to ensure every ballot is counted.”

Wilson, a progressive activist who identifies as a Democrat and a socialist, operates a nonprofit that lobbies for policies like progressive taxes and higher minimum wages.

She ran a campaign focused on affordability issues in Seattle, while Harrell, the more moderate of the two, touted his experience serving as an elected official. He sat on the City Council from 2008 to 2020, briefly serving as interim mayor for five days in 2017 after the resignation of Ed Murray.