There's a saying: “When King County sneezes, Washington state catches a cold.”
That’s because of its size and influence. King County has over 2.2 million people (larger than the state of New Mexico). And the executive oversees more than 18,000 county employees, managing a $20 billion biannual budget and critical systems, such as sewage treatment, health and human services and mass transit. From transportation corridors to health directives, big policies set here ripple throughout the regional economy.
It's been 12 years since voters got to choose the executive in charge of leading the county and setting that course.
Dow Constantine served in the role from 2009 until March of this year, when he left office early to become the CEO of Sound Transit, the light rail and bus agency.
Two King County council members, Claudia Balducci and Girmay Zahilay, made it through a crowded August primary to compete for the top job in the general election.
Worlds apart
Balducci and Zahilay both work full-time for the council, which consists of nine elected representatives from the county’s geographical districts.
And both have leveraged their identities and life stories on the campaign trail.
- Candidates Claudia Balducci and Girmay Zahilay come from very different backgrounds, but are both lawyers who serve on the King County Council and have similar voting records.
- The King County executive oversees more than 18,000 county employees, managing a $20 billion biannual budget and critical systems, such as sewage treatment, health and human services and mass transit.
Zahilay, the president of the council, comes from a family that immigrated to Seattle from Ethiopia when he was 3 years old. He grew up in social housing projects in South Seattle — places like Rainier Vista and New Holly.
In a voters' guide video he talks about growing up with a single mother, at times homeless and relying on food stamps. That support was necessary “even though my parents worked multiple jobs," he said. "I know how hard it is to make ends meet."
Zahilay wanted a better life for his family as a husband and new father. He studied and practiced business law, and even worked for a time in the Obama White House, among other positions.
Claudia Balducci is from Bellevue, where she was first elected to the city council in 2004. A decade later, she was appointed mayor by her peers while working as the director of the county’s Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention. She started working in politics full-time after she was elected to the King County Council in 2015.
Balducci noted in her voters' video guide that she comes from a family of public servants and has been one herself for 25 years. She also said she would be the first woman and mother elected to the council “at a time when attacks continue on gender identity and reproductive rights.”
(The acting King County executive, Shannon Braddock, was the first woman appointed to the role.)
Political similarities
Despite different backgrounds, the candidates do share certain qualities. Both Zahilay and Balducci are lawyers. And their voting records show both to be progressive Democrats who have worked cooperatively on many issues.
In the weeks leading up to Election Day, both have been campaigning around the clock when they aren't doing the day-to-day work of county councilmembers.
Balducci said her kid just started college, so she now has more time to devote to work.
“I have retired from getting up in the morning to make breakfast,” she said.
Zahilay has a one-year-old at home. He said he often works especially hard at night, either doing phone-a-thons to raise money and support or preparing for panel discussions.
“It is a grueling, grueling season,” he said.
Location, location, location
To get a better sense of the candidates, KNKX asked each of them to choose a place that represents the direction they would take King County if elected.
Zahilay chose Skyway, an unincorporated pocket of the county. This is the hilltop community, southeast of Seattle and east of I-5, where he spent his teen years. Back then, he said, it was pretty isolating, but now it’s being transformed for and by the people there.
He walked around the inside of a former bank building, now dubbed the Skyway Resource Center. When the branch closed, the bank donated the building to the community.
“This used to be an actual bank. And the community, during the design process, wanted to keep the vault as a memory,” Zahilay said, standing near the massive steel structure.
Behind it is a nearly soundproof meeting room. The smell of fresh paint fills the air.
“You can walk in and there’s a community meeting space here,” Zahilay said, adding that that was an idea from the community.
“We can have all kinds of secret conversations in here,” he said, laughing. “All of our plotting can happen right in here.”
Zahilay said he worked with the community to get “massive and historic” investments for Skyway from the county, including $2 million for the resource center.
It’s slated to become a walk-in facility for the Department of Local Services and other agencies providing government help. There’s also a new tiny house village in Skyway, along with new sidewalks and a fully renovated park.
Zahilay said the driving force behind his work there and on the council is his own experience growing up as an immigrant from Ethiopia, feeling underserved because he was in unincorporated King County.
On the council, Zahilay said he has worked on policies to secure more tenant protections and a higher minimum wage for people in unincorporated areas of King County. And that’s a lot of people.
“Take all of the unincorporated areas and combine them into one, they would be the second-largest city after Seattle,” he said.
As the executive, Zahilay said, he would act kind of like the mayor for people in those areas, at least five of which are urban, like Skyway.
Claudia Balducci said she wants to serve residents across the county, too. But her focus is on the dozens of smaller cities and suburbs.
She asked to meet at the light rail station in Seattle’s Northgate neighborhood.
“This has been my fight almost since I started,” she said, referring to the recently-completed tracks above her as she stood on the plaza near the ticket machines.
Balducci said she joined the Sound Transit board just after the Phase Two ballot measure passed in 2008. As trains whizzed by above, she said she’s proud to see so many people using the light rail. In addition to that, there are e-bikes, parking structures and a major pedestrian bridge connecting the station to the neighborhood west of it. The light rail now extends to Lynnwood.
“I helped to create a regional transit system and a lot of housing that people could afford, so that we could have people living, moving around, having access to all the things that this region has to offer,” she said.
Part of Sound Transit's strategy in recent years, Balducci said, has been using the open spaces left behind after light rail construction for transit-oriented development. The lots used for construction staging “will be housing for people who work north or south, and who will be able to have a good, stable, affordable life right near lots of activities, with access to all opportunities.”
Gesturing to nearby amenities — the mall and a new ice hockey center — Balducci said this is not just about trains.
“We can do big things. I think people have lost faith that government can do big things. We absolutely can,” she said. “That is what I want to do as King County executive.”
Common priorities
Asked to name the top three issues raised by their constituents, Balducci said affordability, homelessness and public safety.
Zahilay named roughly the same concerns, but said those are now being overshadowed by fears about federal overreach in local communities.
Zahilay and Balducci both hold seats that are up for reelection in 2026, so whoever loses in November will have to run for office again in a year if they want to stay on the council.
After the election, it may take some time to see the full scope of the winner’s approach; how they govern will largely be expressed through their budgeting priorities. The latest biennial budget is just now being negotiated, and the next major budget discussions won’t take place until 2027.
The next term for King County executive will only go through 2029, so to stay in the seat that person will have to run for reelection again in three years, not four. That's due to a switch to even-year elections for the executive — a change made to encourage more voter turnout for this important local office.
