Approximately 49.7% of voters in the 3rd District of the Seattle City Council approved the recall, and 50.3% of voters voted for Savant.

Kshama Sawant talked with supporters gathered on Capitol Hill in Chop Suey when the results of the recall vote came out on Tuesday, December 7, 2021. She led the vote count in the past two days and is expected to continue to support her seat on the 3rd District City Council. (Genna Martin/Crosscut)

With almost all votes counted in the election to remove Kshama Sawant, the Seattle City Council member took the lead on Thursday and looks more likely to keep his job.

As of Friday afternoon, approximately 49.7% of voters in the 3rd District of the Seattle City Council approved the recall, and 50.3% opposed the move, thus retaining Sawant-a difference of 249 votes. The King County election report stated that hundreds of ballots were questioned, but future updates are expected to be small.

"It appears that we have defeated the joint efforts of big companies, the right wing, corporate media, courts and political institutions, who are trying to replace our Socialist Committee office in any way necessary," Savant told supporters on Friday morning. The total number of votes has been announced. "In other words, the rich and their representatives in politics and the media attacked us best, and we defeated them again."

Seattle voters have a history of swinging to the left in subsequent returns, which has pulled Sawant to the top of the list after falling behind in initial returns in the past. If this voting trend continues (which seems to happen again), the woman sitting on the far left of the council may continue her term on the council and will vote next in 2023.

In 2013, in the citywide elections on election night, Savant fell behind long-time incumbent Richard Conlin by 7 percentage points, but led the way in calculating subsequent votes. After the city was changed to a district-based city council seat, the socialist won re-election in 2015. But in 2019, Sawant trailed challenger Seattle Pride organizer Egan Orion by 8 percentage points, but beat him by only 4 percentage points and 2,000 votes when calculating all votes.

At Sawant’s election night event on Tuesday, the seven-year council member prepared her supporters for possible defeat.

"We fight back proudly and forcefully in a way that should be an example for all working people, whether we win or lose in the end," she said. "The working class will encounter setbacks... even if we do everything right, even if we fight as hard as we can, because this bankrupt system is working against us. We do know, but we do know that if we don’t fight, We will never win."

But the mood at the end of the night was optimistic, because the recall attempt ended with a 2,000 votes advantage.

"I still won!" a supporter cheered.

Since she challenged Conlin for the first time, Savant’s campaign for the city council has aroused national political attention because Savant’s goal is to become the first socialist to enter the Seattle city council in more than a century. Now, she is the longest serving member of the Seattle City Council.

For many of the same reasons, Sawant has become a symbol of progress on the left and a target on the right. She promoted a minimum wage of $15, protection of renters, reduced funding for police, and city taxes on Amazon and other large companies.

During her election night event, Sawant said that other progressives who campaigned in Seattle in November did not perform well because they did not accept these causes strongly enough.

But the Recall Sawant movement did not criticize her politics, but instead accused members of the committee of wrongdoing. Supporters of the recall said that she violated her oath of office and that she used city government funds to promote potential voting measures to impose new taxes on major Seattle companies in 2020. They also accused her of participating in protests at the mayor’s house and opening the city hall to protesters when the building was closed during the pandemic, thereby infringing on the privacy of outgoing mayor Jenny Durkan.

The Kshama Solidarity Movement, which is campaigning to support the preservation of Savant, told Crosscut earlier this year that the recall movement is part of the “national right-wing opposition to the issue of black lives” and other progressive causes.

In the recall election on December 7, both the recall and her supporters invested nearly $1 million. District 3 includes Capitol Hill, Central District, Madison Park, Madrona, Jessler Terrace and parts of Little Saigon, Beacon Hill and South Lake Union, with 77,000 voters.

On election night, Savant reminded her supporters that keeping her in office was symbolic of inspiring other progressives around the world.

"If a small revolutionary socialist organization in Seattle can beat the richest man in the world again and again, you can be sure that all the organized forces of the wider working class can and will change society," Sawan In particular.

Update: The story has been updated to reflect Friday’s voting results and added a quote from Sawant.

Officials said that about 1,200 ballots have not yet been counted.

Those who wanted to remember Kshama Sawant said it was to hold her accountable. Her supporters think this is an attack on the progressive policies of the members of the Socialist Committee.

Venezia Buchenne writes about education from a fair perspective. She previously worked at KING 5, Seattle Globalist, and TVW Journalism.

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