The Seattle Times, The Urbanist, The Stranger, the King County Democrats, and the Progressive Voters Guide made 184 endorsements in the 61 contests on King County's August primary ballot: congressional seats, the state Supreme Court, county and Seattle offices, a ballot measure, and 46 state legislative races. This page compares each endorsement against the primary results, scored three ways.
Washington runs a top-two primary: the leading two candidates both go to November, regardless of margin. That makes "my endorsee advanced" a weak scorecard, because in a two-candidate race advancing is automatic. And ten of the 61 contests had exactly one candidate on the ballot.
Only the darkest slice held a real contest, where somebody got eliminated.
An endorser who backs safe incumbents across the ballot will post a high win rate without calling any contested race. The Progressive Voters Guide endorsed in 59 of 61 contests and its pick led in 51; the King County Democrats endorsed in 50 and led in 45. Many of those races had no realistic other outcome.
The first test counts every race the endorser entered. The second counts only contests where somebody was eliminated: races with three or more candidates, plus the ballot measure. The third counts only the eighteen races where at least two of the five backed different candidates. Split picks cannot all finish first, so those races separate the records.
| Endorser | All picks | Eliminations | Split races |
|---|
Each outfit is scored only on races it entered, so the denominators differ. The strictest test rests on six or seven races per endorser, and the gap between 2-of-7 and 4-of-7 is two races.
Two caveats apply here. Eleven of the eighteen involve a sitting incumbent, so "picked the leader" partly measures willingness to back a challenger. And an endorsement is a recommendation, not a prediction: some endorsers knowingly back longshots. The table shows whose picks matched the results, nothing more.
| Race | Led the primary | Seattle Times | Urbanist | Stranger | KC Dems | PVG |
|---|
✓ = this endorser's pick finished first. ✗ = it didn't. — = no pick. Dual endorsements (KC Dems and PVG in LD 11 Pos 1; PVG in LD 32 Pos 2) count as a hit if either name led, though backing both sides is closer to a hedge.
Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen drew a challenge from Hannah Sabio-Howell, a former chair of The Urbanist's endorsement committee. The Urbanist and the county party backed the challenger; the Times and The Stranger backed Pedersen. Pedersen led 66.76% to 23.44%. Sabio-Howell advanced, and the two meet again in November.
The only race where all three papers picked different candidates. Gerry Pollet, a 15-year incumbent The Urbanist once named its legislative "Zero," faced Will Dreher (Stranger) and Ron Davis (Urbanist). Pollet led with 51.68%, more votes than both challengers combined. Dreher took the second spot at 30.76% and faces Pollet in November. Davis was eliminated at 16.74%.
The Times, The Stranger, and the KC Dems all endorsed Mike Diaz. Statewide, Diaz finished third at 31.51% and was eliminated. The Urbanist alone picked Jaime Hawk, who took the second spot at 33.50% and advances against David Stevens (34.99%), the one candidate no endorser backed. This is the only race where a triple-endorsed candidate was eliminated.
In the seven added races where the Seattle Times disagreed with another endorser, its pick led in none: Diaz (SC Pos 3, eliminated), Amamilo (SC Pos 5, eliminated), Hasegawa (KC Council D2), Duda (D8), Kang (Seattle D5), Newsom (Muni Court P5), and No on the library levy, which passed with 74.95%. Five of the seven picks still advanced to November.
In all three, the endorsed candidate trailed. Two readings fit the same numbers: the endorsements failed to put their candidates in front, or the endorsements are part of why the races were close. Results alone cannot separate those. In two of the three races, both candidates advance regardless of the margin. Only the LD 1 cut line eliminated a candidate.
All three counts were still unofficial when this was compiled. LD 1 Pos 2 is the one where late ballots could change who reaches November. The next closest fight is the second slot in CD 8, where Spencer Meline led Trinh Ha by 0.95 points at the Aug 10 count.
Sort by margin to find the nail-biters; filter to see only the contested races or the ones where the endorsers split.
| Race | Cands | Led | Second | 1st–2nd | Cut line | Times | Urbanist | Stranger | KC Dems | PVG |
|---|
Cut line = the gap between second and third place, i.e. how close the fight for the second November slot was. A pick is 1st if it led, tie if it trailed by under 0.5 points, 2nd if it advanced comfortably, out if it finished third or worse (out <0.5 if it missed the cut by under half a point), and a plain dash where the endorser sat the race out.
King County's Statement of Votes Cast dated Aug 11, 2026, an unofficial count. Legislative districts 1, 12 and 31 spill into Snohomish, Chelan and Pierce, so those rows use district-wide sums from each county's report (Aug 7–11); LD 31 is roughly 88% Pierce County, so King-only numbers misstate it badly. Supreme Court rows use statewide totals and CD 1 and CD 8 use district-wide totals, from the Aug 7–10 counts as tabulated by NPI, the Everett Herald, and county reports. CD 7 and CD 9 sit wholly inside King County, so King totals are the district totals. Counties certify Aug 18; the state Aug 21.
Taken from each organization's own published list. The Urbanist's list was transcribed from their full article; the KC Dems' from kcdems.org; The Stranger's from their endorsement article; the Times' from its roundup, per-race editorials, and NPI's comparison table; the Progressive Voters Guide's from its per-city guide pages. PVG covered 59 of the 61 contests, skipping only the NE District Court race and the library levy, and its Supreme Court Pos 3 entry is a stated "lean" toward Hawk rather than a full recommendation. The papers ran deliberately partial legislative slates, which is why their LD columns are mostly blank. One note on the KC Dems: they endorsed in roughly 20 more contests that held no primary at all, because Washington sends races with two or fewer candidates straight to November: Prosecuting Attorney, Elections Director, County Council D4 and D6, Supreme Court Pos 4, three Superior Court seats, eleven district court seats, and Seattle Municipal Court Pos 2 and 6. Those cannot be scored against an August result and are excluded.
A dash means the endorser sat the race out. Only five cells are affirmative published non-endorsements: the Times in LD 5 Pos 1 and LD 47 Pos 1; The Urbanist in LD 5 Pos 2, LD 11 Pos 1 and LD 37 Senate. The LD 37 case is unusual: The Urbanist wrote that it liked both candidates and prefers not to dual-endorse in a two-candidate race.
One attribution needed extra checking. The Seattle Times endorsement of Alex Andrade in LD 33 Pos 2 originally rested on one secondary source. It has since been confirmed: Andrade's campaign site displays "The Seattle Times Endorses Alex Andrade for WA State Representative 33rd LD, Position 2," and she has only run for this seat in the 2026 cycle. The Times endorsed Gregerson for this seat in earlier cycles, which is why the switch needed a second source.
Everything here is agreement between endorsers and voters, measured after the fact. It says nothing about influence, meaning whether any endorsement moved votes. A pick that trailed may still have added thousands of votes, and a pick that led may have had no effect. Separating those would require polling or a natural experiment.
It also scores the primary only. A top-two primary eliminates few candidates: every "2nd" pick on this page is still running, and Salomon–Ryu, Pedersen–Sabio-Howell, Walen–Forsythe, Hasegawa–Saldaña, and Kang–Jenks will be decided in November by a larger electorate. Legislative district turnout in August ran from about 28% to 43% in King County.