In the first round of election returns Tuesday night, Nov. 4, 2025, incumbents Hugo Garcia and Sarah Moore led their respective Burien City Council races, while challengers Sam Méndez and Rocco DeVito held narrow leads — with DeVito ahead of incumbent Stephanie Mora — according to King County Elections.
Voter turnout in Burien stood at 17.9% as of Tuesday evening.
- Incumbent Garcia leads Jessica Ivey 2,740 votes to 2,295, or 53.7% to 45.0%.
- Méndez leads Marie Barbon 2,909 votes to 2,196, or 56.5% to 42.6%.
- Incumbent Moore leads Gabriel Fernandez 3,224 votes to 1,909, or 62.3% to 36.9%.
- DeVito leads incumbent Mora 2,743 votes to 2,344, or 53.5% to 45.7%.
Burien voters were also rejecting Proposition No. 1 — the city’s proposed public safety levy — with 52.7% voting “No” and 47.4% voting “Yes.”
In the closely watched Legislative District No. 33 race, which includes Burien, SeaTac, Normandy Park, and parts of Des Moines and Kent, Burien Mayor Kevin Schilling leads Rep. Edwin Obras early in the count with 6,136 votes (50.2%) to Obras’ 5,778 (47.3%).
For the King County Council District 5 race, Steffanie Fain leads with 9,758 votes (52.70%) over Peter Kwon’s 8,583 votes (46.36%).
For King County Executive, Girmay Zahilay holds a slim lead over challenger Claudia Balducci, with 133,804 votes (50.07 %) to Balducci’s 129,459 (48.44 %).
Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell leads challenger Katie Wilson with 62,086 votes (53.32 %) to her 53,767 votes (46.18 %) – a slight surprise seeing how Wilson beat Harrell in the primary by 9.54 %.
Highline School District Board
- Sue-Ann Hohimer leads incumbent Angelica Alvarez 6,126 votes (50.9%) to 5,803 (48.2%) for Director District 2.
- Katie Kresly leads incumbent Joe Van 6,218 (51.5%) to 5,775 (47.8%) for Director District 3.
- Incumbent Damarys Espinoza leads Ken Kemp 6,767 (55.8%) to 5,259 (43.4%) for Director District 4.
Voters also approved the Highline School District’s Proposition No. 1 levy renewal by a margin of 59.6% to 40.4%.
Elsewhere in South King County:
- In Des Moines, challengers Harry Steinmetz and Pierre Blosse led in their respective council races.
- In Kent, Mayor Dana Ralph was reelected overwhelmingly with 95.8% of the vote.
- In SeaTac, Caitlin Konya led Takele Gobena 62.1% to 36.2% for Council Position 2, while the Position 6 race between Bedria Abdullahi and Michael Sanford was virtually tied at 49.7% to 49.5%.
- In Tukwila, Verna Seal led Peggy McCarthy 50.9% to 48.6%, and Kate Kruller led Ziggy Samra 60.1% to 39.4%.
King County Elections reported that 20.3% of registered voters countywide had returned ballots as of 8 p.m. Tuesday .
What’s Next
- King County Elections will post updated totals by 4 p.m. daily through the week.
- Final election certification is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 25.
- Full results are available at kingcounty.gov/elections.
That’s sad, that’s what happens when people sell out and get funded by outside Burien interests to push KC activist agendas as puppets. The data shows 95% of their campaign money came from outside Burien, that obviously will lead to being influenced and told what to do, how is that good for Burien’s wellbeing when they don’t care about Burien as they will answer to who bought them.
Council results are very reassuring, but it seems the Christian Nationalist school board candidates (Kent, Hohimer, Kresley) are going to be elected, which is really going to cause some serious rifts in our school district. Those, along with the initiatives that are currently in the process of collecting signatures, are signaling that the education system is the next target for the Christian Nationalism project.
They are getting really, really good at not advertising their true intentions and positions.
Schools are for education not indoctrination, the reason those candidates were elected is because the district learned towards feelings instead of facts like math, science, geography and civic pride. For you to claim ties to Christian Nationalism is about as factual as saying all the current board members are card carrying Communists, when in fact neither is true.
“They are getting really, really good at not advertising their true intentions and positions.”
Well, we could say this about the whole election now couldn’t we, look who’s getting into the council with all their out of city hush money.
I feel so sad for Burien and what could have been. The unions decided that they prefer a chaotic, drug and crime infested city. They then picked candidates to insure that. I feel awful for small businesses, restaurants, and decency. Back to crazy town. Yesterday around 15 people were doing drugs on the Big Lots steps and were thrilled when their dealer showed up. Nice futures. It is like cleaning up your house and then someone comes in and messes it all up again. I am very disappointed in Burien voters.
Very disappointing, most my hope is gone for any type of working city.. way to rewind time back to chaos.
And why is it that so many “want” it this way, drugs, homelessness, mentally ill with no help our small businesses going away because of all of this? Seattle’s current Mayor says he needs help from the outlying neighborhoods to step up and offer that help by taking some of the homeless and shelter them…you know this new and previous council people are not doing it from the goodness of their hearts, more like the perks they think they’ll receive from the City of Seattle like when King Constantine was in office OH and also giving each other a big “pat on their backs”. SMH!