💥 Katie Wilson is Seattle's next mayor, probably!

Mayor-Elect Katie Wilson Pulls Ahead to 50.08% of Votes

“We’re going to wait for all of the ballots to be counted, but I think we won this race,” Wilson told The Seattle Times last night. In Tuesday night’s ballot drop Katie Wilson won 61.23% of the more than 6,000 ballots counted. This brought her total lead over Bruce Harrell to 1,346 votes. [King County Elections]

• To Recount or Not to Recount? In Seattle, recounts are required if the margin is less than 0.5% AND less than 2,000 votes. And 0.5% represents about 1,389 votes as the threshold for recount. This puts us on the razor’s edge between recount or not. With 1,540 outstanding curable ballots, Wilson could tip her lead over and out of recount territory before election certification on November 25.
• How Many Ballots Have Been Cured Already? King County Elections told City Cast Seattle that county-wide 2,100 signature challenges have already been resolved in this election, or about 33% of those who had their signature challenged.
• How Do I Make Sure My Ballot Counted? The Stranger has these easy instructions to make sure your ballot, and your neighbor’s ballot, and your friends’ ballots and your family’s ballots were counted. Go check!
• Now What? According to King County Elections, now we wait until election certification on November 25. Between now and then, the county will continue to receive small numbers of on-time mail (largely from overseas and military voters) that they’ll process daily, in addition to daily cured ballots. If we do go to a recount, it will happen after the deadline to cure ballots (Nov. 24) and Elections tells us “we can typically wrap [machine recounts] up within a day or so.”

In Other Elections News

• Girmay Zahilay Names King County Executive Transition Team: Zahilay appointed four people to lead his team, which he says represents labor, business, non-profits, and grassroots efforts: MLK Labor President Katie Garrow, Microsoft President Brad Smith, Former Seahawks and non-profit backer Doug Baldwin, and Esther Lucero of the Seattle Indian Health Board. The transition committee has 100 people on it in total, which is a steep rise in numbers compared to the 30 on his predecessor’s team. The Times’ Jim Brunner is calling this “transition team inflation.” Because Zahilay is filling the position vacated by Dow Constantine, it will mean Zahilay takes over as soon as the election is certified, instead of in January. [KOMO]
• District 2’s Eddie Lin on the Issues That Matter Most to South Seattle: First on his list? Housing affordability. “When we talk about public safety, it is deeply related to housing affordability. And as we plan our city and as we grow, housing and transit and safe streets all go together,” Lin told South Seattle Emerald’s Mike Davis. [South Seattle Emerald]

✈️ Sea-Tac Delays and Cancellations Continue: Today is day six of the Federal Aviation Administration’s order to reduce flights at major airports due to the partial government shutdown. At least 40 flights were canceled Tuesday, 49 on Monday, 45 on Sunday, 33 on Saturday, and 29 on Friday. The federal government is days from reopening after the Senate passage of legislation to end the historic shutdown, so we could see the end of cancellations very soon. [Seattle Times]

🥘 One of Seattle’s Oldest Ethiopian Restaurants Celebrates 30 Years: Meskel is one of the five oldest continuously operating Ethiopian restaurants in the U.S. It was opened in 1995 by Belaynesh Chera (known as “Bebe” to customers and friends) after she immigrated to Seattle. Meskel has been featured in CNN Travel, The Stranger, the Seattle Met, and in Eater Seattle. Bebe told Vanishing Seattle business has been lagging since the pandemic and she is asking for the community to support Meskel via dining in or ordering takeout to keep the restaurant (inside a cozy converted house) going. [Vanishing Seattle]

🚴🏼 Lead Seattle E-Bike Maker May Shutdown As Soon As 2026: Rad Power Bikes, Seattle’s electric-bike maker, is facing “significant financial challenges,” due to drops in demand, tariffs, and the “macroeconomic landscape.” Formerly the leading e-bike seller in North America, Rad filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) with the Washington state Employment Security Department on Friday. A company spokesperson told GeekWire the filing was part of “advance written notice of a potential cessation of operations that could occur as early as January 2026.” If they do shut down, it would impact 64 employees at the company’s headquarters in Ballard. [GeekWire]

🤘🏽Only 40% of Washington’s Music Venues Are Profitable: While our state’s venues are performing nominally better than the national average of 36%, the data shows how fine of a line our music scene walks. With the average ticket price for a live music performance increasing from $13 to $23, between 2019 and 2023, venues, fans, and artists are being squeezed from all sides. As contributor Chase Hutchinson reported last month, Washington’s musicians only earn 29% of their income from music, with nearly half of the state’s artists considering relocation due to housing costs. [Seattle Times]

• But there’s also good news: Washington’s 290 independent music venues welcomed nearly 4.2 million fans last year – one of the biggest numbers in the country.
• Plus: we put together a list of small local venues to check out and support.

✍🏾 Seattle Public Library Writers’ Room Residency Applications Are Open: Interested in investing more into your writing? The library runs a residency “intended to help individual writers with their projects while facilitating a supportive writing community.” It includes access to library resources, dedicated work space, and a public reading for residents to showcase their work. Applications close Nov. 14 at 5 p.m. [Seattle Public Library]