Here are your King County results (.pdf) and here’s Washington.
As far as Seattle City Council, I know Goldy has been talking about low turnout for a while, but I can’t get my brain around there being around 10 thousand votes in district elections after the first drop. Those numbers will obviously go up, but I just don’t have a sense of what it means. Are the candidates who are pretty far behind in percentage but not in absolute numbers sunk? I don’t know. But for now, if it holds, the council will be majority women, and I think a bit more liberal in January than it is now. And we’re going to have a better financing system going forward. Gonzalez’ campaign wins both the most fun party of the ones I stopped by and the coveted first person to email me after their victory. I didn’t give her money, or indicate support in any way, but kudos?
Statewide, the Eyman initiative looks like it’s winning, although it’s both tight and probably unconstitutional. The State House will still be Democratic, but less so. I’m going back out, but use this to discuss stuff a couple hours late.
A win by Hickel would narrow that to 50-48, the Democrats’ smallest House majority since 2002. In the state Senate, Republicans, joined by one conservative Democrat, hold a two-vote majority.
http://www.seattletimes.com/se.....tive-race/
Kiss off the governor’s mansion in 2016 and go for the state House.
It wasn’t last nights election result but 7 years ago yesterday the nightmare began. Obama has been ruining this country ever since. Anyone been paying attention to this? All Obamas fault!
http://www.marketwatch.com/m/quote/DJIA
Long live Ireland – home of the Free and the Brave.
While not a big line up, I saw many people dropping off ballots at the drop van at the Ranier Community Center yesterday.
I was torn on Move Seattle, should have been other revenue options. I ended up supporting it, as I work in the shadow of the Ballad Bridge. I have seen the pedestrian walkway.(I missed my stop on the way to work a few times and had to walk back from the other side of the Canal). I also have seen the seismic retrofitting of the support columns, thanks to Bridging the Gap. Since I use the 7 as a Plan C if I miss the 50, I was concerned about the RapidRide+ Route on Rainier Ave, and the investment Metro had made in New trolleycoaches. I read about RapidRide+, and it appears it will make the 7 a better route.
“The people have spoken. The bastards”…….
Hunter S. Thompson
28.16% voter turnout here in Spokane County. ;-(
However, we did get a couple new good lefty city council members.
WA might not be the only state in which the legislature isn’t as securely blue as it used to be.
Bevin’s win, in this political environment, wasn’t a shock. But the margin of victory and the down-ballot casualties certainly were.
In what looked like a close race — the Bluegrass Poll wasn’t the only one to get the winner wrong — Republicans blew the doors off Democrats. For the second time in a year, it appears that every undecided voter in the state broke hard to the right.
…
Democrats thought they had this race won. They were preparing for a Gov. Jack Conway to help protect the Democratic majority in the state House and for Edelen to give U.S. Sen. Rand Paul a run for his money in 2016.
Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2015/1.....rylink=cpy
The only statewide KY Democrats who won last night have recognizable family names in state politics, and one of them – son of the sitting governor – barely squeaked through despite a huge mid-October cash advantage. The other, last year’s failed Dem US Senate nominee and the incumbent SoS, out-raised her opponent more than 17:1 through mid-October and won by 2%.
The last major KY poll had Bevin down 5%. He won by 8%.
$15 not as popular in Portland, Maine.
The proposal to make Portland’s minimum wage twice as much as the state minimum met resistance from the business community and got just 42 percent of the vote.
$10.10 apparently more palatable to those who must face the electorate now and then.
Portland’s low-wage workers will still get a raise, however: The City Council voted in September to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour effective Jan. 1.
http://www.pressherald.com/201.....community/
@7 Yep, Maine Republicans are celebrating their success in keeping other people’s wages low.
Of course, the fact Portland, Maine, will have a $10.10/hr minimum instead of a $15/hr minimum, and the rest of the state has a $7.50/hr minimum, doesn’t mean people have to work for $7.50 or $10.10. This is a free country and they can walk away from those jobs, and from employers paying starvation wages.
That’s what I would do. Notice I don’t live in Maine or Kentucky.