Seattle primary election set for Tuesday with City Council and county races on ballot

Washington’s primary election is scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 4, with Seattle voters set to weigh in on contested city, county and other races that will determine which candidates advance to the Nov. 3 general election.

Seattle City Council District 5 is the only Seattle council seat on the 2026 ballot. The city’s Ethics and Elections Commission identifies the contest as a special election in the city’s 2026 election cycle.

The election is a primary, not the final decision in the races on the ballot. Its immediate function is to narrow contested candidate fields ahead of the November general election. The primary will decide which candidates advance in hundreds of races statewide, according to Axios Seattle.

District 5 is Seattle’s council contest

The District 5 contest is the sole Seattle City Council race in this year’s election cycle, making it the city-level council election for Seattle voters to follow in the Aug. 4 primary.

Seattle’s Ethics and Elections Commission lists a District 5 special election among the 2026 cycle’s elections. The commission says election administration and candidate filing information are maintained through the city and King County Elections.

The ballot is not limited to the City Council contest. The primary also includes contested races in Seattle and King County, alongside races elsewhere in Washington. Voters should not treat the council race as the only government office or jurisdiction involved in the primary.

What the primary will decide

The Aug. 4 election will not itself conclude the contested races that continue to November. Instead, it is the procedural stage that selects the candidates who will go forward to the Nov. 3 general election.

That makes Tuesday’s vote the immediate decision point for Washington voters in the 2026 local-election calendar. For Seattle residents, the results will establish the next stage of the District 5 special-election contest and of other contested races involving King County.

No final turnout figures or vote totals were available in the approved source material before the election. The packet also does not identify candidates, predict outcomes or establish which candidates will advance. Those results will depend on the primary vote.

Key dates

The primary is scheduled for Aug. 4, 2026. The general election is scheduled for Nov. 3, 2026. King County’s 2026 election calendar identifies Aug. 4 as the primary date.