The man in third place has made up his mind. Brett Phillips will now be backing Noel Frame over Gael Tarleton in the race to be the next state legislator from Seattle's 36th District.

Phillips received 14 percent of the vote in the crowded August primary, not enough to get through to the general, and now says:

Noel impresses me as someone who lives her values and leads on them. When she sees a problem, she tackles it. She draws on a lot of policy insight, given her work with Governor Gregoire and U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell, but she is also guided by the values she learned growing up in a working class family, and strongly depending on public education to get a good start in life. She knows in her gut what’s right for our community. And she doesn’t wait until an issue become popular before taking a stand and working for a better outcome.

Some related numerical trash-talking from Frame's campaign in the jump:

Together Frame and Phillips, both first-time candidates, secured 37.58% of the votes cast in their primary election race, with only 28.25% going to the other candidate who advanced to the general election, two-term Seattle Port Commissioner Gael Tarleton. More than 70% of voters chose an alternative candidate to Tarleton in the primary election. More than 56% of these voters chose a Democratic candidate other than Tarleton in this strong Democratic district.