Mayor's Race Results

11/04/2009

The race for Seattle Mayor is too close to call. The first results have environmental activist Mike McGinn leading T–Mobile executive Joe Mallahan by less than a thousand votes.

The final polls of the campaign had Joe Mallahan leading in the Mayor's race, so when Mallahan saw the first results posted last night, this was his reaction.

Mallahan: "Ah, sad. Yeah, I mean, my hope was that I'd have a decisive victory, and could get to the hard work of planning a transition. And we'll obviously put that on hold a little bit."

Mike McGinn celebrated with his supporters at a Capitol Hill bar, but with a lead of less than one percentage point, he says he is taking nothing for granted.

McGinn: "I get some sleep in the morning, and then somewhere around you know, 4:00 p.m. tomorrow we start worrying about the next ballot drop. It's in the hands of the voters now. And we're just going to wait to see the results."

Both campaigns had dozens of volunteers working the phones to get out the vote until shortly before the first results were posted. McGinn's campaign continued to collect ballots from supporters until the last post office closed at midnight.

I'm Deborah Wang, KUOW News.

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