(The Center Square) – After three days of counting votes, incumbent Seattle City Councilmember Dan Strauss has overtaken challenger Pete Hanning for the District 6 seat.
As of the night of Thursday evening, Strauss has 225 more votes than Hanning, making it too close to call the race three days after election day. So far, 29,283 votes have been collected.
Despite the small gap in collected votes, Strauss is now the only incumbent Seattle city councilmember to have the lead. Incumbents Tammy Morales and Andrew Lewis are both losing to their respective challengers.
Strauss was first elected to the Seattle City Council District 6 seat in 2019. Prior to that, he served as a senior policy advisor for former Seattle City Councilmember Sally Bagshaw, and as a legislative assistant to Sen. David Frockt.
If re-elected, Strauss’ plan for the next term includes continuation of funding for affordable housing to the tune of at least $200 million per year, fully funding the Seattle Police Department, expanding the city’s Vehicle Outreach Team and scaling up neighborhood homelessness response teams.
Hanning was previously a small business owner in the Fremont District. One of Hanning’s top priorities is to increase shelter space and mental health and drug treatment programs for homeless people within the city.
District 6 includes the Fremont, Green Lake and Ballard Districts. Another one of Hanning’s priorities was to upgrade the city’s aging infrastructure, including the number of bridges specifically in his district.
“Too often, this kind of policy only interests people once it’s too late, but I am committed to ensuring our city budget doesn’t continue to backlog these critical projects,” Hanning said on his campaign website.
Strauss’ endorsements include state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, state Sen. Noel Frame and Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell.
Hanning’s endorsements include Former Seattle City Councilmembers Sue Donaldson, Margaret Pageier, and Peter Steinbrueck, as well as the Seattle Times.
The Center Square reached out to Strauss for comment on the latest election results but did not receive a response.
