Marilyn Strickland appears headed to the Tacoma mayor’s office.

After the latest ballot counts Friday evening, the first-term Tacoma city councilwoman’s lead swelled to 723 votes over architect Jim Merritt in the race to become the city’s next mayor.

Strickland added 354 votes to her lead Friday, nearly doubling her advantage.

“It looks very good for us,” Strickland said late Friday, although not declaring victory.

For Merritt to overcome Strickland’s lead – now standing at 2.5 percentage points with more than 28,400 votes counted – he would need to win roughly 54 percent of the estimated ballots left to be counted.

Late Friday, Pierce County Elections Manager Lori Augino estimated about 45,000 valid ballots from Pierce County voters remain untallied. Tacoma ballots have so far made up just over 23 percent of the county’s total, suggesting about 10,000 city ballots yet to be counted.

When factoring in the trend of roughly 5 percent of ballots in the mayor’s race that so far have been discarded as “under votes,” Merritt would need to win 53.6 percent of the remaining vote count, calculations show.

And, if there are fewer than 10,000 ballots left – as Strickland’s camp believes – Merritt would need to win an even higher percentage of the remaining vote.

“I think it would be very difficult to overcome that lead at this point with the number of ballots left,” said Katie Rose, a Tacoma political consultant who has managed several local political campaigns.

While not impossible, the prospects seem unlikely. On Wednesday, the only day of ballot tallies since Election Day that have favored Merritt, the count broke only barely in his favor – just over 50 percent. To win election, he likely must get votes at a rate of 4 percentage points or more beyond that for every remaining ballot count.

The latest results put the race well outside the parameters for an automatic recount. Elections officials must conduct a machine recount of ballots if the margin between a race’s two top candidates is less than 2,000 votes and 0.5 percent of the total votes cast for both candidates, state law says.

Still, neither campaign was willing to call the race late Friday.

Merritt was not available to comment, but his campaign manager said the candidate was not ready to concede.

“Until we see the (voting) abstracts, we will not make any determination,” said campaign manager Ronnie Bush. “It’s just as simple as that.”

Bush held out hope that the remaining uncounted ballots primarily will come from the city’s Northeast neighborhoods, which she believes will strongly favor Merritt. Bush said she wants to review the voting records, or abstracts, from the latest tallies to try to determine where those ballots originated. She’ll then talk with Merritt about how to proceed, she said.

“The Northeast historically are the last votes in,” Bush said. “The numbers that we have so far show that only one precinct there went her (Strickland’s) way – and barely. All the others favor Jim, and favor him very well.”

Likewise, Strickland said Friday that she isn’t ready to declare victory.

“Whenever you’re protecting or defending a lead, you’re always concerned you’re going to lose it,” she said. “The fact that they (the latest counts) got bigger tonight feels good.”

“It looks like it’s going to go our way,” she added. “But until every vote is counted, I’m not going to declare anything.”

Strickland, 47, a first-term City Council member, campaigned as the experienced candidate prepared to lead the city on a platform of improving education and developing the economy. She drew strong support from current and past political figures and local labor groups.

Merritt, 62, a longtime architect, campaigned as the outsider who would bring change to City Hall, saying he’d make the city more attentive to the concerns of residents and businesses. He garnered endorsements from several prominent politicians and business leaders.

Both candidates waged a neck-and-neck battle for campaign dollars – both nearing the $150,000 mark – with Strickland slightly in the lead going into the election.

Strickland, who led by 178 votes after the close of Election Day ballot counts, has never trailed in the race. Her lead dwindled by 61 votes during Wednesday’s tallies, but surged by more than 600 votes on Thursday and Friday.

The Pierce County Auditor’s Office expects results from its next batch of ballot counts today at 5 p.m.

Lewis Kamb: 253-597-8542

lewis.kamb@thenewstribune.com

BALLOT WATCH – TACOMA MAYOR

Marilyn Strickland moved closer to becoming Tacoma’s next mayor, after another day of ballot counting saw her lead widening over Jim Merritt.

Results as of 5 p.m. Friday:

Strickland14,53551.27 percent

Merritt13,81248.72 percent

Margin as of Thursday: Strickland +369

Margin as of Friday: Strickland +723

Ballots counted Friday: 4,871

Total ballots counted so far: 28,415

Estimated ballots to be counted: Based on Pierce County Elections Manager Lori Augino’s estimates that 45,000 Pierce County ballots remain uncounted, this year’s city turnout rate indicates about 10,000 Tacoma ballots remain. In the 2005 mayor’s race, more than 39,000 ballots were tallied. In 2007, a year without a mayor’s race, city races drew more than 33,000 ballots.

Next ballot counts: Today at 5 p.m.