Korean American candidate tops city council race in Seattle suburb

August 7, 2015
SeaTac City Council candidate Peter Kwon, right, received the support of Washington Rep. Cindy Ryu for his campaign.

SeaTac City Council candidate Peter Kwon, right, received the support of Washington Rep. Cindy Ryu for his campaign.

By The Korea Times Seattle staff

Peter Kwon, 45, a city council candidate for the city of SeaTac, Washington, came in ahead of his opponents in the city’s primary election Tuesday.

Kwon, whose Korean name is Kwon Seung-hyun, received 49.96 percent of votes against Sally Andrews (28.63 percent) and incumbent Terry Anderson (21.26 percent).

Whether Kwon — who is running as a non-partisan candidate — can take the seat is up to the Nov. 3 general election.

A Rhapsody systems engineer, Kwon majored in computer science at the University of Washington before taking up jobs at Microsoft, Boeing, UW and Nordstrom.

He immigrated to New York with his family from South Korea at age 3.

SeaTac, which had a population of 26,900 as of the 2010 U.S. Census, is a suburb of Seattle.