Some WA midterm races still too close to call

And we begin tonight with the results of Washington's midterm elections. We're tracking two U.S. House races that have yet to be called. It's a tight race in District 5, which covers Spokane and eastern Washington. Incumbent Republican Michael Baumgartner is holding a narrow lead over his Democratic challenger, Kamala Conroy. Meanwhile, in District 4, Republican Amanda McKinney is holding a healthy lead over Democrat John Doresky, but no final projection on this race just yet. District 4 is the only open race for Washington's House seats following the retirement of Republican Dan Newhouse. Let's take a look at the latest numbers now on Washington's three ballot initiatives. The ban on transgender athletes in girls' sports has passed. This race was called last night. Initiative 001, which expands parental access to their child's public school records, is on track to fail, but the race has not yet been called. And the same goes for the measure to repeal Washington's new tax on household income over a million dollars. This measure failing by a wide margin. Even though the new income tax has survived a ballot challenge, Governor Ferguson is reminding Washingtonians that the revenue isn't due to arrive until 2029. And the state is facing a tough budget in the short term. So our budget environment remains extremely challenging in the short term. The good news is, looking a bit more long-term from 2029 moving forward, the light at the end of the tunnel is not a train coming at us, but a true light at the end of the tunnel, that we get to fiscal stability in 2029 for sure after we make some hard choices in this upcoming legislative session. The governor will unveil his next budget proposal in December. While voters have upheld the income tax, it still faces a legal challenge on constitutional grounds. That lawsuit is currently pending in Klickitat County Superior Court, but is widely expected to land before the state Supreme Court. And in this election, voters decided an unprecedented five seats on the state Supreme Court. While the positions are nonpartisan, the Democrat-backed candidates are leading in all but one race. And that is for position four, with Sean O'Donnell holding a narrow lead over Ian Burke. This is one of two open seats for the state Supreme Court. The three incumbents all have commanding leads in their races. The other open race is position three, where Jamie Hawke holds a strong lead over David Stevens. In Los Angeles, City Council member and Democratic Socialist Nithya Raman has ousted Karen Bass to become the city's next mayor. Bass officially conceded the election today, as official ballot returns show Rahman in the lead with 52.1% of the vote to Bass's 47.9%. 76% of the ballots have been tallied. Rahman had initially endorsed Bass, but later announced her own run for the mayor's office. Bass received a lot of criticism during the deadly Palisades fire. Many were upset that she was out of the country at the time. And also blame budget cuts to the fire department.