1. Delaney and Williamson most active campaigners in early states
2. Seattle’s election results
3. Six weeks after election day this race is over – what took so long?

Delaney and Williamson most active campaigners in early states

Ballotpedia has compiled the number of days each Democratic presidential candidate spent in the four early primary states—Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada—between January 1 and July 29 this year.

Former Rep. John Delaney was the most active campaigner in Iowa, while author Marianne Williamson spent the most days in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada. Where candidates focus their campaigns can hint at primary strategy and where they are trying to fortify coalitions. 

Here are the top states for the candidates who have qualified for the September debate:

We will update this data with more analysis next week and will continue to update it as the primary season progresses. See the full details and our methodology at the link below.

Learn more

Seattle’s election results

Preliminary results for Tuesday’s primary for seven seats on the Seattle City Council showed the three incumbents seeking re-election in the lead. Seattle uses a vote-by-mail process and King County Elections will count ballots each day until the primary results are certified on August 20. To advance to the November 5 general election, candidates must win a plurality of the vote. The results below are current as of Wednesday morning.

For the races where incumbents filed for re-election:

• District 1: Incumbent Lisa Herbold led her two opponents with 48 percent of the vote. Phil Tavel was second with 34 percent.
• District 3: Incumbent Kshama Sawant led with 33 percent of the vote, and Egan Orion had 24 percent; the nearest challenger of the four others was Pat Murakami with 14 percent.
• District 5: Incumbent Debora Juarez led with 43 percent and Ann Davison Sattler had 28 percent. In third was John Lombard with 14 percent. Six candidates appeared on the ballot.

For the open races:

• District 2: Tammy Morales led with 44 percent and Mark Solomon was second with 24 percent in the seven-candidate field.
• District 4: Alex Pedersen led with 46 percent, and Shaun Scott was second with 20 percent. Ten candidates are running in District 4.
• District 6: Dan Strauss and Heidi Wills led with 31 percent and 23 percent, respectively, in the 14-candidate field.
• District 7: Andrew Lewis led with 29 percent and Jim Pugel was second with 27 percent. Ten candidates are running.

Voters also approved two local ballot measures Tuesday. 

• Proposition 1 in Seattle authorized the city to levy for seven years a property tax of $0.122 per $1,000 in assessed property value with annual increases of up to 1% to fund library operations, materials, and maintenance and capital improvements. 
• Proposition 1 in King County authorized the county to levy for six years a property tax of $0.1832 per $1,000 in assessed property value to replace an expiring tax, with annual increases and with revenue for parks, recreation, open space, public pools, zoo operations, and aquarium capital improvements.

Learn more→

Six weeks after election day this race is over – what took so long?

On Tuesday, public defender Tiffany Caban conceded the Democratic primary for Queens, New York district attorney to Queens Borough President Melinda Katz (D), ending a six-week-long dispute over the election’s outcome. 

The primary to succeed Richard Brown, who died in May 2019 after 28 years in office, drew national attention after presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren endorsed Caban. Political observers compared the race to last year’s Democratic primary for a Queens-based Congressional seat in which Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D) unseated fourth-ranked House Democrat Joseph Crowley (D). Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Caban while Crowley fundraised for Katz. 

On June 25, Caban appeared to be the winner with a lead of 1,100 votes over Katz. But after absentee and provisional ballots were certified July 3, Katz took a lead of 20 votes. The city’s elections board completed a full manual recount on July 29 which found Katz ahead by 60 votes. Caban challenged the recount results before the Kings County Supreme Court, saying that the board had invalidated a number of ballots which she argued should have been counted. In his ruling Tuesday, Judge John G. Ingram found that most of the ballots named in Caban’s challenge were not valid, meaning there were not enough ballots remaining in question to change the election’s result.

89,858 votes were cast in the 2019 Democratic primary, while 3,777 votes were cast for the office at the last election in 2015. Katz will face attorney Daniel Kogan (R) in the November 5 general election.

Learn more→