O’Donnell’s Supreme Court lead holds in two scenarios, with late ballots still the test

Sean O’Donnell’s 40,248-vote lead gives him an advantage in Washington’s closest Supreme Court race. Two county-by-county calculations leave him ahead if later voters divide as those already counted have — but the amount of voting left determines how much of a shift he can withstand.

O’Donnell led Ian Birk 926,884 votes to 886,636, with 50.9% support to Birk’s 48.7%, in the official results checked Wednesday. The totals remained unchanged from election night.

Using counties’ reported ballot estimates, an Olympic Herald scenario would leave O’Donnell about 63,000 votes ahead after those ballots are counted. 

A separate calculation using each county’s 2022 turnout rate would leave him ahead by about 61,000. Both assume the current voting patterns within counties hold.

The geography helps explain that advantage. Birk led King County, 280,643 votes to 206,721. O’Donnell led Pierce, Clark, Thurston, Spokane and Snohomish — the other five counties with the largest reported remaining-ballot estimates.

King listed 94,000 ballots left, Pierce 80,000, Clark 68,000, Thurston 50,000, Spokane 44,000 and Snohomish 42,000.

Across 35 counties, the reported estimates totaled 555,504 ballots. Adams, Grays Harbor, Pacific and Wahkiakum had no estimate listed. Applying each reporting county’s current rate of voting for Birk or O’Donnell to its estimate produces about 499,000 additional two-candidate votes.

With that pool of votes left, Birk would need just over 54% to erase the gap. O’Donnell could lose the remaining vote narrowly and still finish ahead.

A larger count changes that threshold. If every county matches its 2022 turnout rate, applied to this year’s registered voters, the same calculation produces about 1.16 million more two-candidate votes across all 39 counties. Birk would need about 51.7% of them to take the lead.

King illustrates why the amount left matters. It had counted 535,712 ballots. Matching its certified 2022 turnout rate of 64.73% would produce about 945,000 ballots this year, leaving roughly 410,000 beyond the first count.

The two scenarios also show how differently a late shift could affect O’Donnell. If Birk improves his two-candidate share by three percentage points in every county compared with that county’s first count, O’Donnell stays ahead by about 33,000 votes in the reported-estimate scenario. In the larger, 2022-turnout scenario, Birk moves ahead by about 8,600.

O’Donnell therefore has a lead that can survive some losses in the later count. How much he can afford to lose depends on the volume and location of the ballots still out. The roughly 63,000-vote scenario result is not a prediction of his final margin.

On the North Olympic Peninsula, Birk led Clallam County 9,234 votes to 7,462 and Jefferson County 9,589 to 5,663. Clallam’s listed remaining estimate was 9,000, dated election night. Jefferson County reported 2,548 Wednesday morning.

King, Pierce and Snohomish listed their next updates for 4 p.m. Wednesday, followed by Clark and Spokane at 5 p.m. and Thurston at 6 p.m. Clallam also listed a 5 p.m. count. Those batches will show whether Birk is gaining the share he needs.