Brenda Fincher will return to the Kent City Council next year after taking a bigger lead in votes Friday night in what had been a tight race against challenger Toni Troutner.
Fincher has a 346-vote lead with 6,813 (51.19 percent) to Troutner’s 6,647 votes (48.59 percent), according to King County Elections results released Friday night.
Troutner said in an email on Friday night that she will call Fincher on Saturday to congratulate her on the victory.
“I am honored to have received so much support from the voters of Kent,” Troutner said in a statement. “I ran an honest campaign. I would like to congratulate Councilmember Fincher. During the campaign, Councilmember Fincher talked about all of the wonderful plans she has for the future of Kent, and I look forward to watching those plans unfold.”
The race stayed tight initially. Fincher had leads of 67, 49, 82 and 114 votes as counts were released each day since the first totals on Tuesday night. The difference was less than .50 percent at one point before Fincher boosted the lead to 1 percent after Thursday and to nearly 3 percent after Friday’s count.
King County Elections is scheduled to release more results each weekday until the count is certified on Nov. 24.
The council appointed Fincher to her seat last year to replace Ken Sharp, who resigned after just two weeks in office. Two years remain on the term, starting in January.
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