Kent School Board incumbent Leslie Hamada is in a tight race to retain her seat while incumbent Meghin Margel is on the way to keeping her position.<\/p>\n
Hamada received 50.64% (7,342 votes) while challenger Donald Cook had 48.54% (7,038 votes), according to results released Tuesday night, Nov. 7 by King County Elections. Margel had 58.43% (8,579 votes) while challenger Andy Carter had 40.97% (6,015 votes).<\/p>\n
King County Elections will update results of the Nov. 7 general election ballot each weekday until certifying results on Nov. 28.<\/p>\n
Andy Song ran unopposed on the ballot. He will replace Joe Bento, who decided not to seek reelection, which means the five-member board will have at least one new member.<\/p>\n
Hamada had the most votes in the Aug. 1 primary while Cook took second among four candidates. The two candidates with the most votes advanced to the general election. Hamada had 48.14% followed by Cook at 23.91%, Stephanie Lawson at 19.23% and Lizz Morgan at 7.97%. Lawson and Morgan endorsed Cook.<\/p>\n
Hamada has raised $24,168, basically all money she gave to herself, and spent $22,161, according to the state Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) website on Nov. 7. Cook has raised $3,950 and spent $3,239. Hamada spent most of her money on campaign mailers, signs and management and consulting services.<\/p>\n
Hamada didn’t file a contribution and expenditure report in 2019 when she ran unopposed to earn her first four-year term on the board.<\/p>\n
Carter raised $2,345 and spent $100, according to the PDC. Margel has not filed a contribution and expenditure report due to staying below the contribution and spending threshold. <\/p>\n
The board appointed Margel to the seat in September 2022 after Michele Bettinger resigned. Carter was a finalist for the appointment.<\/p>\n
Hamada has a long list of endorsements on her campaign website, including former Democratic State Rep. Pat Sullivan of Covington; state Sen. Claudia Kauffman, D-Kent; State Rep. Chris Stearns, D-Auburn; State Rep. Tina Orwall, D-Des Moines; King County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove; and Kent Mayor Dana Ralph.<\/p>\n
Margel’s endorsements include Ralph; Upthegrove; King County Councilmember Reagan Dunn; and Renton Mayor Armondo Pavone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Incumbent Margel has solid lead against Carter <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":212,"featured_media":65940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-65939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65939"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/212"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65939"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=65939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}