Council races in Spokane, Valley remain tight as more ballots are counted

The gap between Spokane City Council candidates Zack Zappone and Mike Lish ever-so-slightly narrowed on Thursday.

After another day of ballot counting, Lish trails Zappone by nearly 3 percentage points in the race to represent northwest Spokane in District 3.

Initial results on election day showed Lish, a businessman, trailing Zappone, a teacher, by more than 4 percentage points. On Wednesday, Lish made significant progress, closing the margin to 3 percentage points.

Votes counted on Thursday still trended in Lish’s favor, but to a much smaller degree than on Wednesday.

In Spokane Valley, the City Council race between James “JJ” Johnson and Rod Higgins also remains too close to call.

After the new count was posted on Thursday, Johnson was ahead with 50.4% of the vote compared with Higgins’ 49%. That’s a gap of 1.5%, compared with 3.5% when initial results were posted on Election Day.

In the other tightly contested Spokane Valley City Council race, Laura Padden moved closer to victory on Thursday. She now leads incumbent Linda Thompson, earning 52% of the vote to Thompson’s 47%.

There are about 22,000 votes left to count, according to the Spokane County Elections Office.

Ballots are counted as long as they were postmarked by Tuesday.