Girmay Zahilay claims victory in King County executive race as Balducci concedes

Girmay Zahilay has claimed victory in the race for King County executive, as his opponent Claudia Balducci conceded Friday. The two are both currently County Council members representing opposite sides of Lake Washington.

Friday’s vote drop showed a growing lead for Zahilay, with over 53% of the vote compared to less than 46% for Balducci.

“I want to congratulate my colleague, Executive-Elect Zahilay, on the victory and thank him for a spirited contest of ideas about how to lead King County through these tumultuous times,” Balducci said in an email. “He has my full support, and I look forward to continuing working with him going forward. Throughout this campaign, we heard frequently that voters thought highly of both candidates. This puts us in a rare position in politics today to end an election campaign unified rather than divided.”

Zahilay said in an email that he was "deeply grateful" to the people of King County.

“This is the place that raised me, supported my family, and made my story possible. To now lead this region and help shape the community that gave me everything is the honor of my lifetime," Zahilay wrote. "It is not lost on me that when I take office on November 25, I will be the first newly elected Executive in 16 years and only the seventh person ever elected to this office. I will also be the first immigrant and the first refugee to hold the job. My story is only possible because of the opportunities that King County provided."

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It’s a big step up in what has already been a remarkable career for Zahilay. At just 38, he’s apparently the youngest person ever elected to King County executive.

A former refugee who came to Seattle as a small child from Sudan, Zahilay lived in homeless shelters and public housing when he first arrived. He went from Franklin High School to Stanford and then law school at the University of Pennsylvania, interned as a law clerk for Obama’s White House Counsel and spent a year at Seattle-based law firm Perkins Coie. Zahilay also founded a nonprofit to mentor middle schoolers.

In 2019, he entered politics with a bang: challenging and defeating Larry Gossett, a “living legend” of the civil rights era, who’d been on County Council for decades. Zahilay took office at the beginning of 2020, mere months before COVID lockdowns began.

In his first campaign and this year, Zahilay focused less on the shortcomings of his opponents and more on engaging people in local politics. He frequently describes his launch parties and fundraisers as places where it’s easy to find people who’ve never voted in local elections or don’t even know what county government does.

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Zahilay himself comes across as a charismatic nerd: tall, bald, and full of references to "Pokémon" and "The Elder Scrolls" video games. But he’s extremely well-connected in high-ranking Democratic circles, and got both Gov. Bob Ferguson and U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal to stump for him in TV ads in recent weeks.

In his five years on council, Zahilay has worked on gun violence prevention policy and helped pass a levy to open crisis care centers around the county. He’s caught some criticism over progressive proposals he’s floated that never panned out —opening a county bank, leveraging debt to build housing, and closing the youth jail.

But Zahilay has argued on the campaign trail that he’s willing to “study new ideas.”

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Zahilay faces a tough job ahead running a county of more than two million people and 17,000 employees, built on a shaky budget with sometimes poor fiscal management.

County leaders have been managing to hold up an inherently rickety budget built on an instability that’s worsened in recent years: the county can’t raise property taxes as high as the rate of inflation and is looking at a $70 million to $90 million deficit in the 2028-29 biennium.

On top of that, in recent months, the county auditor has called into question the ability of the department that handles billions in community grants to do basic financial monitoring.

Zahilay is also taking office under unusual circumstances. Former King County Executive Dow Constantine left earlier this year, leaving an interim executive who will hand the seat over to Zahilay as soon as results are certified later this month.

Zahilay will only serve a three-year term, as the county is moving to elect its top executive on even years when more people vote. King County elections estimates only around 45% of voters cast a vote in this year's general election on Tuesday.