Edmonds City Council Position 2 candidate Will Chen maintained his lead over opponent Janelle Cass in the updated election returns issued Monday by the Snohomish County Elections Office.
As of Monday, Chen had 7,758 votes, picking up 19 votes since last Friday’s count. Cass received 18 additional votes in Monday’s returns for a total of 7,632.
In the other two city council races, Position 1 incumbent Kristiana Johnson continued her 53%-to-46% lead over challenger Alicia Crank, and in Position 3, former City Councilmember Neil Tibbott was ahead of imcumbent Adrienne Fraley-Monillas by a 63%-to-37%. margin (the same percentage as Friday).
You can see all results at this link. The next round of results will be released at 5 p.m. Nov. 9.
So currently there is a 0.81% difference in vote between Will Chen and Janelle Cass. Which falls below the 0.5% difference to spur an automatic machine recount per State law. Given how few votes were added on Monday, it is fair to say that Will Chen has won the race for county council position 2.
I was torn between both candidates, but ultimately voted for Will over a view that I thought he would be more receptive, collaborative, and productive on the council. However, Janelle Cass and her supports had a lot of good ideas, and were very involved in this campaign. I hope that they will continue to be active in City Council input in the future.
With the exception of AFM, who turned especially negative towards the end, I thought that all candidates did especially well during this campaign and the debates.
While Alicia Crank and Janelle Cass did not win this race, they both have proven that they have a tremendous amount of support and excellent ideas that could benefit this city. Especially the Homelessness forum that Janelle put on, and the Black in Edmonds series that Alicia hosted.
Cass primary’d Luke, who had a huge incumbent advantage. She went from nearly unknown to first place. The GOTV efforts on the 3rd also saw increases in both Crank and AFM, indicating that Crank/AFM/Chen were likely together on a slate (even if just a slate in people’s mind). In hindsight, Cass was an incredible example of what a non-partisan, non-politician can do in this incredibly blue-partisan town. I love Alicia, and I respect AFM, but it’s clear they ran a campaign against themselves. Independents is the largest political party, and the flat side of the bell curves are less flat on Kristiana Johnson and Neil Tibbot than Alicia Crank and Fraley-Monillas.
I call this the Jannelle Cass-Effect.