SCC Insight

@KromanDavid This election is going to be very close, and I agree with you David that we probably won't see a resolution this afternoon.

@KromanDavid On the other hand: there are 8k more votes than in Nov 2021, but 25k more of them were cast by dropbox. And we don't know the political leanings of the additional dropbox voters. That could change the traditional left-skew of late-counted dropbox votes.

King County Elections says to expect around 50,000 new Seattle ballots today. I *think* that will give us a pretty good idea of who’s going to win, though it’s probably not enough for anyone to concede

Sean Hannity plays dumb, says he doesn’t know where the predictions of a red wave came from. So the Washington Post lets him have it with a supercut of his own Fox News predicting a red wave.

I did a soft launch a couple of weeks ago, so there is already content up there to read. Follow at @seapapertrail for new posts.

And to be clear, this is not my new full-time gig. I have some other projects I’m still developing, but this is a small thing I want to get out there. I hope you find it valuable.

I’m officially launching today one of several projects I’m working on: Seattle Paper Trail. @seapapertrail seattlepapertrail.com

Our local @axios Seattle newsletter launches at the end of May. You can sign up in advance here -- it's free! axios.com/signup/seattle

@joelgombiner But to your point, they have a substantial amount of "market power" and they could decide to reap a profit whenever they wanted; the only hitch is it opens them up to antitrust prosecution.

@joelgombiner well they are still growing the international business, and the north american quarterly loss could just be a one-time thing. They have maintained since their earliest days that they are prioritizing growth over profitability.

Amazon's quarterly earnings release today is fascinating. The retail business lost $2.85 billion, $1.56B in North America and $1.28B internationally. The AWS business had a $6.51B profit. In total, Amazon had $3.67B in operating income, a 3.15% operating margin.

Historically Amazon's retail business, at least in North America, has maintained an operating profit margin on par with other retail companies, in the low single-digits. This is definitely a change and the analysts will spend days trying to unpack its meaning.

Over the long term, if Amazon's retail business continues to lose money (supported financially by AWS), it opens up the company to allegations of predatory pricing to drive out competitors.

Updated report for @CBSNews stations as history is made. The Senate voted 53 to 47 to confirm Judge Kentanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court. She becomes the first Black woman & former public defender to serve on the high court. About a minute of applause followed vote.

The moment @JRODshow44’s dream came true.