SEATTLE — Incumbent Dow Constantine won his re-election bid for King County executive after an initial round of votes were released on Nov. 2.
Constantine has captured 55% of the vote as of Nov. 4r, and challenger Joe Nguyen has 45% of the vote.
The county executive is the highest elected official who represents county government.
Constantine was seeking his fourth term as executive.
KING 5 Political Analyst Ron Sims said both candidates ran a good race. However, it may be difficult for Nguyen to come back from the deficit. Constantine, after all, is well known, Sims said.
On Monday, Constantine and Nguyen were out canvassing for votes on Monday, braving the bad weather.
"It's anybody's guess because there is so little information out there, nearly a million people didn't vote in the primary election county wide," said Constantine, who is facing his first real challenge in more than a decade. "I've previously run against the people from the right of me. This is the first time I've had someone challenging me ostensibly from the left, so it changes the equation."
Nguyen, a state Senator, has been outraised and outspent nearly eight to one. He's also been challenged by the fact that in-person events have been limited, due to the pandemic.
"In his last campaign, he won by 77% or so, and we took that down to 50% in less than three months," Nguyen said. "So the fact that we did so much in a short period of time shows that there's energy behind change, that people want something different."