Your Daily Guide

The Mayor’s Race Drags On, But Wilson Is Closing The Gap

There are now only 4,300 votes separating Katie Wilson and Bruce Harrell. In Friday’s ballot drop Wilson picked up 48.86% of the vote. Bruce Harrell still leads with 50.74%, but the gap between them is less than 2 points. King County Elections counted about 56,000 Seattle ballots, which leaves at least another 45,000 in Seattle to be counted. Seattle Time's David Kroman reports that if Wilson gets exactly the same margin as on Friday she'll take the lead by 20 votes.

King County did not count ballots over the weekend, but told our team they will be counting them today and over Veteran’s Day tomorrow. So far, voter turnout reached 55.27%, which is on par with turnout in 2021’s mayoral election. Hang in there, Seattle, we could be in this for the long haul. In the meantime, here’s what we know:

• ✅

  Girmay Zahilay is King County Executive: Claudia Balducci conceded on Friday after Girmay Zahilay widened his lead to 8 points. Zahilay is the first immigrant and refugee to lead the county. [Seattle Times]
• Seattle School Board:

• District 7: Jen LaVallee

  ✅

  is officially the District 7 Seattle Public School Board Director, after winning 58.35% of the vote.
• District 2: Kathleen Smith is holding the lead over Sarah Clark 52.9% to 46.5%.

• Longtime Seattle political consultant Cathy Allen told KUOW: “It was one of the first times that we saw the majority of candidates were women and people of color and a lot of young people thrown in as well.”

For Complete Election Results: Visit King County's election results page. Vote tallies will update daily as ballots are counted.

🥹 Iconic Virginia Inn Bought by Four Long-Time Employees: Virginia Inn employees, Jackelyn Batingan, Amber Quezada, Manuel Sarabia, and Marisa Mohr, are officially the new owners of the 122-year-old institution. The restaurant had announced in April that it would close due to a lease dispute that was later settled. The new owners have worked as cooks, servers and bartenders at the restaurant for years. [My Northwest]

• The New Owners Say: “We are proud to be a woman, queer- and immigrant-owned business and will continue to be a welcoming and inclusive ‘third place’ for our communities.”

🛬 Flight Cuts Could Rise to Twenty Percent: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Friday flight cancellations would increase if the government shutdown continues beyond next week. SeaTac is one of the 40 “high-volume” markets impacted. Air traffic controllers have been working without pay, leading to high numbers of workers calling in sick. Tuesday will be controllers’ second missed paycheck. On today’s podcast we talk through some travel tips to handle the shutdown induced chaos. [Seattle Times]

🍎 November SNAP Benefits Caught in Limbo: Over the weekend, the Trump administration demanded states “undo” full SNAP benefits which had already been paid out under judges’ orders last week. Gov. Ferguson announced Friday that the more than 250,000 households across Washington scheduled to receive their monthly benefits between Nov. 1 and Nov. 7 had received 100% for this month. [AP]

• ICYMI: Last week, a federal judge ordered the Trump Administration to fully fund November SNAP benefits for roughly 42 million low-income Americans, including nearly 1 million Washingtonians. The Trump Administration immediately appealed this decision.
• The Supreme Court Puts SNAP on Pause: On Friday night, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson temporarily paused the two rulings ordering SNAP payments while the Supreme Court considered the Trump administration’s appeal. Then the Department of Agriculture on Saturday wrote state SNAP directors to warn them it now considers payments under the prior orders “unauthorized.”
• Impact on WA Still Unclear: So far, the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services says November food assistance is still available to Washington residents. DSHS told KING-5 if this changes, they will update their website and social media. [KING 5]

🖱️Seattle Tech Is Still White and a ‘Boy’s Club’: Tech employs more than 274,000 in the Seattle area, according to the Computing Technology Industry Association. But only 3% of all tech roles were filled by Black professionals, and only 5% by Hispanics and Latinos. Women account for just 25% of the tech workforce. The Seattle Times has this in-depth look at how the AI lay-offs are impacting the small gains made by women and tech workers of color.

💸 No New Spending in 2026 Washington Budget: Washington’s well is running dry. The Democrats’ chief budget writer in the Washington Senate told colleagues in an email last week she will not be accepting any new funding requests.“We don’t have money to pay for what is needed, let alone new spending that members might request,” Sen. June Robinson said. [Washington State Standard]

• Alexis Mercedes Rinck Responds: The newly reelected council member wrote a response to budget austerity in PubliCola, in which she says “These cuts are destabilizing to organizations that serve actual people. The public may not know or care if a clinic or a food bank is funded from federal, state, or local dollars—but they will feel the pain when it disappears.”