Seattle will get a new mayor next year, after incumbent Greg Nickels’ unexpected primary election defeat.
Nickels on Friday conceded defeat in last week’s primary, after coming in third behind relative newcomers Michael McGinn and Joe Mallahan, who will face off in November’s general election.
The two-term mayor garnered barely more than a quarter of the vote in the nonpartisan primary.
Nickels touted his record on transportation, citing his support for the Sound Transit light-rail line that opened this year, and his role in brokering a deal to replace the worn-out Alaskan Way viaduct along the city’s waterfront with a tunnel.
Some pundits said he appears to have suffered from perceptions of a brusque style, as well as the city’s poor response to cleaning up heavy snowfall last winter.
The tunnel project is likely to become an issue in the runoff, as McGinn, a former Sierra Club chairman, campaigned on a promise to stop the project. Mallahan, a T-Mobile vice president, supports the tunnel agreement.
The project’s cost is estimated at $4.24 billion, of which Washington committed $2.81 billion.
Nickels will remain in office through the end of 2009. His electoral defeat will also bring an early end to his tenure as president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
“I said that I would make right decisions for the future of the city rather than ones that would preserve my personal popularity,” Nickels said in a statement on his campaign Web site. “Based on Tuesday’s primary election results, I have succeeded beyond my wildest dreams!”
