Salomon Takes 22-Vote Lead Over McClelland

Jesse Salomon, 35-year-old public defender who lives in Shoreline's Ridgecrest neighborhood, has overtaken former planning commissioner Robin McClelland, by 22 votes as of Tuesday afternoon in the latest results from King County elections.

The tallying is far from over, but Salomon was pleased.

"This is very, very enouraging news," Salomon said. "We're still holding our breath because it's not over. I'm very pleased with the results so far. It just goes to show that all the volunteers who put in time on the campaign, each one of their efforts made a difference. Even without one of their help this wouldn't be possible.

"I think tomorrow will be determinant of whether I can pull another 100 votes or so and get it out of the recount range," he said.

Under state law, a machine recount is triggered if the difference between the candidates is less than 0.5 percent of the total votes that both candidates receive. A hand recount is mandatory if the difference between the candidates is less than 0.25 percent of the total votes that both receive.

Based on the 13,730 votes counted so far, a difference of 68 votes or less would trigger a scanned recount. 

"I think my voters tend to vote late, so it didn't surprise me too much but I think you are seeing the effect of Terry Scott's endorsement which we did a mailer on the last weekend and the get-out-the-vote effort," Salomon said. "We called thousands of people. It was valuable to have human to human contact—we really focused on that."

McClelland was disappointed to see lead shift to Salomon, but expected she'd have to wait the final votes were counted on Nov. 28 and the election certified on Nov. 29 before knowing for sure.

"I don't have anything new to say," she said. "I'm working on taking it day by day. We need to string this thing out to Nov. 28 and only until then will we know how it wil turn out."

The race was the most expensive in Shoreline this election. Salomon raised $35,415 and spent $30,457.37 more than $10,000 more than McClelland. McClelland raised $25,530 and spent $19,479.

"We had a lot less money we didn't have the luxury of doing last minute things that cost money," McClelland said. "We called people, doorbelled, talked to people."

Below is the latest results from King County Elections. The results will be updated Wednesday at 4:30 p.m.

CITY OF SHORELINE

Ballots Cast/Registered Voters: *

16618

/

33429

49.71%

Council Position No. 2

William Hubbell

4047

29.23%

Chris Eggen

9757

70.46%

Write-in

43

0.31%

Council Position No. 4

Janet Way

5373

38.47%

Doris McConnell

8544

61.18%

Write-in

48

0.34%

Council Position No. 6

Jesse Salomon

6876

49.93%

Robin McClelland

6854

49.77%

Write-in

41

0.30%