Nickels loses ground; Mallahan takes lead

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels' chances of re-election slipped Wednesday as new vote totals showed him still in third place, and falling further behind challengers Joe Mallahan and Mike McGinn.

With tens of thousands of votes remaining to be counted, neither Nickels nor his rivals were ready to call the election.

Mallahan now leads with 26.8 percent of the vote. McGinn is in second with 26.5 percent. Nickels is third with 25.2 percent. The top two will advance to the Nov. 3 general election.

Wednesday's count of about 16,000 Seattle ballots left Nickels more than 1,000 votes out of second place. He was just 455 votes out of second place on election night.

King County Elections estimates about 50,000 ballots remain to be counted in the city.

Seattle political consultant Michael Grossman said Nickels is finished if he doesn't show some momentum today when another large batch of votes is tallied. "I think that will be decisive," he said.

It might actually be better for Nickels to lose in the primary at this point, Grossman suggested, because he'd face a brutal and difficult task in a general election.

"His brand as a politician is so tainted voters are not going to listen to anything he [Nickels] has to say," Grossman said. "Short of some egregious behavioral quirk that McGinn or Mallahan could exhibit, it's hard to see how it is going to turn around for him."

The Nickels campaign was not ready to concede.

"There is still a real possibility that we can turn this around," said Sandeep Kaushik, a Nickels campaign spokesman. "There are still a lot of question marks here."

Nickels did not make himself available for an interview Wednesday, but on election night the two-term incumbent argued that he would fare better in a one-on-one November matchup compared with the seven-versus-one beating he has taken during the primary.

Mallahan and McGinn agreed the race was still too close to call.

"It's still a three-way tie," said Mallahan, the T-Mobile executive who jumped into first place over McGinn by just 221 votes.

Mallahan said he believes a round of late attacks by Nickels and his supporters backfired. Those efforts, funded by union and business interests, focused on Mallahan's lack of involvement in civic affairs before running for mayor, including his failure to vote in many elections.

"I believe his negative slur campaign against me hurt him more than it hurt me," Mallahan said.

McGinn, an attorney and environmental leader, said "the candidates are entitled to see the votes counted" before conceding. He added: "I feel good. The top two seem to have emerged, and our lead over third place increased slightly."

McGinn has campaigned largely on his opposition to a $4.2 billion tunnel project to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct. But in a news conference Wednesday morning at his Greenwood home, he disputed the idea that he is a one-issue candidate. He cited his platform of better bus service, increased city involvement in schools and a proposal for a citywide broadband utility.

King County will continue counting ballots throughout the week and possibly into early next week. If the mayor's race stays close, a recount is also a possibility.

State law requires a machine recount if two candidates are separated by fewer than 2,000 votes and a margin of less than one-half of 1 percent of the total votes cast.

If he is defeated in the primary, Nickels would be the second straight Seattle mayor to suffer that indignity. Mayor Paul Schell failed to advance past the 2001 primary after voters blamed him for the 1999 WTO riots and the 2001 Mardi Gras street brawling that killed a 20-year-old man.

Jim Brunner: 206-515-5628 or jbrunner@seattletimes.com