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Woodward loses ground in second day of counting. Here’s what she would need to overtake Brown in mayoral race

Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward acknowledges the crowd after she’s introduced Tuesday, Nov. 7 2023 at Barrister Winery where her supporters were gathered to watch election returns. She was trailing by a margin of 51-48% but expressed confidence that she could make up that amount as late ballots are counted in the coming days. (Jesse Tinsley/The Spokesman-Review)
Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward acknowledges the crowd after she’s introduced Tuesday, Nov. 7 2023 at Barrister Winery where her supporters were gathered to watch election returns. She was trailing by a margin of 51-48% but expressed confidence that she could make up that amount as late ballots are counted in the coming days. (Jesse Tinsley/The Spokesman-Review)
By Emry Dinman emryd@spokesman.com(509) 459-5472

The Spokane mayor race remains too close to call, though Lisa Brown’s lead over incumbent Nadine Woodward grew slightly Thursday with the latest batch of voting results.

Brown maintains a 1,741-vote lead, up from 1,577 on Tuesday night.

Woodward won 49.2% of the ballots counted on Thursday, an improvement for her compared to the first batch counted on Tuesday. But she still lost ground.

Before counting started on Thursday, there were about 26,100 ballots left to count in the city of Spokane. Woodward needed about 53% of those ballots to match Brown’s total.

After the count, there are about 16,200 ballots left. Woodward will need 55.7% of those to even up with Brown.

The margins in Spokane’s other races shifted slightly Thursday as well, with frontrunners increasing leads in every instance. Proposition 1 is also still passing overwhelmingly with 75% of the vote.

Liberals who won nearly every City Council seat up for grabs Tuesday slightly increased their leads Thursday. Council President-elect Betsy Wilkerson’s lead over challenger Kim Plese grew from 2,880 votes to 3,204.

Councilman-elect Paul Dillon leads Katey Treloar by 1,540 votes, up from 1,313 on election night.

Councilwoman-elect Kitty Klitzke continues to enjoy the widest lead of any local race, winning over Earl Moore by more than 4,000 votes as of Thursday.

Councilman Michael Cathcart was the only incumbent on the City Council running for reelection this year and was also the only Spokane conservative with a clear victory Tuesday night. His lead over Lindsey Shaw increased slightly to 1,533 votes after Thursday’s ballot drop.

The next batch of ballots will be released by the Spokane County Elections Office at 5 p.m. on Friday. Spokane County Auditor Vicky Dalton said although most county workers have Veterans Day off, election employees work. The observed holiday is for county workers is Friday.  Dalton said most of the ballots that arrived on Thursday appeared to be postmarked on Monday.

“Some of these close races are just going to be close down to the last day ,” Dalton said, noting election results will be finalized Nov. 28.

Voting results were delayed on Wednesday after the Spokane County elections office discovered a letter with a note and a white powder that tested positive for trace amounts fentanyl. The office was evacuated and vote counting was paused for the day.

Similar suspicious letters caused evacuations in election offices in King, Pierce and Skagit counties Wednesday. Snohomish County reported one received Thursday. Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs referred to the incidents as terrorist acts that underscored the need for stronger protections for election workers.

Editor’s note: This story was update to correct information about mail. The U.S. Postal Service observes Veterans Day on Saturday. Therefore the county elections received ballots in the mail on Friday.