Saturday, September 20, 2003

By NEIL MODIE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Cynthia Sullivan, chairwoman and senior member of the King County Council, conceded yesterday to Bob Ferguson in their winner-take-all Democratic primary election after newly counted absentee ballots widened his thin lead.

It was the biggest upset of Tuesday's primary.

And since no Republican ran, it was the final outcome of the campaign between two similarly liberal candidates. It pitted Ferguson's door-to-door shoe leather against Sullivan's money and blue-chip Democratic and interest-group endorsements -- and Sullivan's 20-year tenure against Ferguson's fresh face and Seattle voters' antipathy toward incumbents.

After the latest vote count showed Ferguson with a dramatically enlarged but still narrow, 468-vote lead, Sullivan, 54, issued a brief statement conceding defeat. She telephoned her congratulations to the 38-year-old lawyer and first-time candidate.

The upstart candidate's probable victory in Northeast Seattle's 2nd District could give county voters an opportunity to shrink the County Council from 13 members to nine.

It is an idea supported by Ferguson and most Republicans -- but not by most Democrats, who have a one-vote majority on the council and have never agreed to put the Republican-sponsored, proposed charter amendment on the ballot.

"I ran on that," Ferguson said. "I absolutely plan on delivering that to the voters. ... That's one of the issues I hammered on in the campaign. That was the key one, the one that the voters seemed to respond to."

The King County Democratic Party and the King County Labor Council, among others, oppose the idea. Democrats suspect, and some Republicans admit, that it arises from a GOP hope that it will lead to Republican dominance of the council.

The King County Jail guards' union has submitted a proposed charter amendment by initiative to shrink the council size to nine. It was invalidated in King County Superior Court, but the state Supreme Court, preparing to rule on an appeal, ordered county officials yesterday to take steps "to preserve the possibility" of placing it on the Nov. 4 ballot.

It left election officials puzzled, since the court extended that order until Dec. 1, but Oct. 10 is the latest date the county can place a measure on the general election ballot, and Oct. 15 is the deadline for the county to mail absentee ballots to voters.

Ferguson gave Sullivan her first serious re-election challenge since she won the office in 1983, beating a Republican by ringing doorbells as incessantly as Ferguson did this year. Cathy Allen, a Democratic political consultant in Seattle, said Ferguson's apparent victory "is going to go down as one of Seattle's biggest upsets."

"I want to congratulate Bob Ferguson for running a strong campaign, and for his election to the King County Council," Sullivansaid in her statement. "It has been an honor and a privilege to serve the wonderful people of North and Northeast Seattle."

She said she was "proud to count among my friends those who stand up for a clean environment and for working families in our region."

"I really don't care to comment beyond" the statement, Sullivan said in a brief telephone conversation. She telephoned Ferguson yesterday afternoon to congratulate him.

"I thought she ran a good campaign," Ferguson said. "I thought we both did. I thought we gave voters a clear choice."

Consultant Allen attributed Sullivan's loss partly to "a voter turnout that was anti-incumbent" resulting from antipathy toward several Seattle City Council incumbents on the ballot. Ferguson agreed that it was probably a factor but attributed his victory mainly to the 22,000 doorbells he rang -- "putting a face" on the County Council race, he said.

A tabulation of 10,005 additional absentees in the 2nd District race gave Ferguson 14,806 votes to Sullivan's 14,338, more than tripling the 143-vote lead he had after the previous count Wednesday afternoon.

Ferguson now has 50.8 percent of the votes to Sullivan's 49.2 percent.

County election officials estimate that they have counted at least 80 percent of all the ballots that will be returned. They will tabulate more Tuesday and have a final count Thursday.

P-I reporter Neil Modie can be reached at 206-448-8321 or neilmodie@seattlepi.com

© 1998-2005 Seattle Post-Intelligencer