Four King County Council seats are up for election this year with incumbents in all of them running to defend their seats.

In Dist. 2, Larry Gossett is running against challenger Girmay Zahilay. In initial results from the Nov. 5 election, Zahilay was ahead is 56.85% of the vote. Gossett received 42.75%. Only around one quarter of ballots from registered voters in all the county council districts had been counted.

Gossett has served on the county council since he was first elected to it in 1993. Zahilay represents his first serious challenge to the seat in the more than 20 years he’s sat on it.

In Dist. 4, incumbent Jeanne Kohl-Welles is running aginst challenger Abigail Doerr. Kohl-Welles had secured a handy lead with 73.46% of votes. Doerr had received 25.90%.

The Dist. 6 race saw incumbent Claudia Balducci squaring off against a non-candidate Bill Hirt. Hirt ran as a protest candidate and to draw attention to his transit blog. Balducci had 76.96% of the vote compared to Hirt’s 22.74%.

In the Dist. 8 race, Joe McDermott was defending his seat against Michael Neher. McDermott secured 82.13% of the vote compared to Neher’s 17.34%.

The next count will be posted tomorrow and the election will be certified by Nov. 26.

This report will be updated with comment from candidates.