This was a race that John reported on shortly after last week’s election, but the result had still been up in the air at that point. Ann Davison, a Republican attorney, was running for the office of City Attorney against a Democrat who was such an extreme proponent of abolishing the police that she once described a person who detonated a bomb at a police station as a “hero.” Davison, by contrast, promised to restore law and order in the city and resume the prosecution of “lower-level crimes” that had been abandoned by her predecessor. In a city as blue as Seattle filled with people who actually support Antifa anarchists, it would have been amazing to see Davison even come close. But on election night she appeared to have a measurable lead.

They were waiting until at least a significant portion of the mail-in ballots were read before any celebrations could begin. Liberal candidates have been known to make up huge deficits measured on election day when mass mail-in voting is used, as was the case in Seattle once again. But now enough counting has taken place and it appears to be pretty much a certainty that Davison will be the next City Attorney. So is there a sea change taking place in Seattle? (Seattle Times)

Ann Davison, a Republican who has promised to restore law and order to the streets of Seattle by increasing prosecution of misdemeanor crimes and clearing out homeless camps, has defeated progressive candidate Nicole Thomas-Kennedy to become the city’s first woman city attorney.

The Seattle Times is calling the race for Davison following Friday’s updated vote count.

Updated tallies released by King County Elections show Davison leading with 53% of the vote to Thomas-Kennedy’s 47%, with 238,299 votes counted. According to an analysis by The Seattle Times, Thomas-Kennedy would need 87% of the estimated 17,000 outstanding votes — nearly 15,000 total — to catch up.

It’s not hard to see why the paper would call the race for Davison at this point. Having a 6 point lead with less than 15,000 ballots left to count is a fairly comfortable position to be in. If there had been some sort of solid blue tide mailing in votes for her opponent she could still have easily lost, but that clearly wasn’t the case this year.

Winning a race in Seattle as a Republican is almost a miracle in and of itself. Or at least it would have been prior to this year. But now there has clearly been a change running through the populace that the local Democratic Party hasn’t caught wind of yet. Even in the races where Democrats prevailed, it was the moderate Democrats who beat out the “abolish the police” crowd. Seeing Davison make it over the finish line is just the icing on the cake.

If any Democrats are acting surprised at these results, you shouldn’t have any sympathy for them. Seattle has been torn to shreds for at least two years now while “CHOP Zones” were established, police officers were attacked and much of the city was subjected to arson and other forms of destruction. The last Mayor and the City Council chose to side with the anarchists and berate their own police, all the while invoking the name of a man who was killed by a police officer more than halfway across the continent.

Seattle has been an object lesson in what happens when law enforcement efforts are undermined and law and order are replaced by mob rule. It’s not a pretty picture and enough residents had clearly had enough of the chaos and fear, leading them to vote for a change.

Will Davison be able to pull off the required magic to restore order to her city? It won’t be easy, but she will at least enjoy the support of most of Seattle’s remaining police officers. And if they manage to start dragging a few of the Antifa radicals in front of a judge and locking them away for a good long time, perhaps the rest will get the message and disband. Or we can at least hope so. I lived outside of Seattle for a while many years ago and it was a beautiful place. Seeing what’s happened to it lately is simply heartbreaking.