This morning, for the first time in more than 15 years, King County residents woke up to a new political leader. At 11:59:59 Monday night, Dow Constantine, a constant presence atop Washington’s largest county for the last decade-and-a-half, resigned as King County executive.

And now Shannon Braddock is the new King County executive. Braddock’s ascension to the peak of county government is an unlikely one. She has never won an election (unless you count high school), losing the two times she has run for lower office. But as her own electoral ambitions have faltered she has risen behind the scenes to become a powerful figure in local government.

She now takes office — it could be for as little as a few hours or for as long as eight months — with the county looking to fill a $150 million gap in its two-year general fund budget and threatening layoffs in its public health programs and criminal legal system. She also takes the helm as the federal government threatens to further cut funding unless the county bends its knee to the Trump administration’s wishes on immigration policy.

Constantine, a one-syllable institution — Dow — who’s been in local elected office for nearly 30 years, resigned to become the new CEO of Sound Transit, and appointed Braddock as his successor.

Braddock said she sees herself as a caretaker, ensuring day-to-day government functions, with two big additional responsibilities — proposing a “responsible budget” and preparing for the transition to a new elected executive.

“If we don’t get some sort of revenue relief from the Legislature, we absolutely are going to have some incredibly tough decisions to make,” Braddock said.

She doesn’t envision any major changes from Constantine’s administration — in policy, personnel or the county’s strained relationship with the Trump administration — but says they’re different people and may govern with a different style.

On Friday, Braddock was talking to a staffer who said she’d called her mother in California, to tell her she’d be working for the first woman King County executive. The woman’s mother started to cry.

“I forget sometimes, especially, I think, for other generations, this is still work that needs to be done,” Braddock said. “There are still some of these spaces and places where there are firsts to happen, and this is one of those.”

“Honestly, it means a lot to me,” she said.

Braddock, 55, has worked for King County for the last 15 years, starting in the office of then-Councilmember Joe McDermott and moving to the King County executive’s office in 2017.

“We’ve always joked at my house that our mom is a real-life Leslie Knope,” Braddock’s son wrote in 2018, referring to the hard-working, uber-earnest, hyper-prepared, sometimes irritating but ultimately beloved civil servant and politician played by Amy Poehler on the sitcom Parks and Recreation.

“Oh my God, that’s so adorable,” Braddock said of her son’s comment. “It probably is true in the sense that I am a person who has genuine optimism about what government can do for people. I really do.”

Constantine chose Braddock to serve as interim county executive upon his resignation. The next step is for the Metropolitan King County Council to choose an acting county executive — that could happen as soon as Tuesday afternoon. The council will then appoint a county executive, to serve through the election in November.

Braddock, a Democrat (although the office is technically nonpartisan), is likely to be chosen as the acting executive and could very well also be chosen as the appointed executive, which would mean serving for the next eight months. She said she will not run for the position in November and will not endorse in the race for the next county executive.

“Shannon Braddock is a brilliant and capable woman,” Constantine said in an interview last week.

Braddock came to Constantine’s office as director of council relations and steadily moved up the ranks, serving as deputy chief of staff, chief of staff and ultimately deputy county executive.

“The way we have our government set up, the deputy executive really is the person to whom everyone communicates,” Constantine said. “So she, more than anyone, has her fingers on the pulse of the county government. She understands what the day-to-day challenges are. And I think she has the wisdom and maturity and experience to be able to carry the county forward without missing a step.”

She was raised in Bellingham, where her dad was a City Council member and state legislator before serving as secretary of the state Department of Social and Health Services. Braddock graduated from Western Washington University, and later got a master’s in public policy from the University of Washington. She worked in Congress, for a Democratic lieutenant governor of Texas and for a medical device company before joining county government.

She served on the boards of the West Seattle Food Bank and WestSide Baby, which provides diapers and clothing to families in need.

McDermott hired her as his chief of staff in 2010, after she had volunteered for his campaign and lobbied him on education issues through her local parent teacher association.

“I saw a keen executive ability in her that I wanted to be part of my team,” McDermott said last week. “Hiring Shannon was one of the brightest things I’ve done in public service.”

McDermott said she was especially good at putting together and managing teams.

In 2015, Braddock ran for Seattle City Council, vying for an open West Seattle seat. She came in second in the nine-person primary to advance to the general election.

She led in fundraising and ran as a progressive, but with backing of the business community. She benefitted from more than $200,000 in spending from outside groups, much of it from the Metropolitan Seattle Chamber of Commerce.

Ultimately, she lost to Lisa Herbold by 39 votes, out of more than 25,000 cast.

She ran for office again in 2018, when a retirement opened up the state Senate seat in her West Seattle district. Again, she came in second in a crowded primary (11 candidates). And again, she outfundraised her general election opponent. She benefitted from more than $165,000 in outside spending, much of it from a group supporting charter schools and funded by tech industry billionaires.

She campaigned on implementing a capital gains tax, passing gun safety measures and increasing access to child care.

A mother of three, Braddock said at the time that she ran in part because there should be more moms in elected office.

Her campaign plugged her policy positions and showed her doing cartwheels in the campaign office. It touted endorsements and it asked “What kind of wine goes with smashing the patriarchy?”

But she lost the general election by 16 points, defeated by Joe Nguyen who now serves in Gov. Bob Ferguson’s cabinet and who unsuccessfully challenged Constantine in 2021.

DeLancey Lane met Braddock at a town hall event during her 2015 City Council campaign. It was the first year Lane was old enough to vote and she remembers thinking Braddock was the smartest person in the room. It didn’t hurt, when, as she was leaving, Braddock “complimented my bright orange heels.”

Three years later, Lane managed Braddock’s campaign for state Senate.

“Some politicians, and bosses in general, you find out are actually really mean, and she is not. She’s very caring, very funny and personable and relatable, but so, so smart,” said Lane, now a political consultant.

Braddock, she said, “was the adult in the room,” but also someone who would get out of “call time” (when candidates make endless strings of phone calls to ask for donations) by getting her staff to practice dance moves.

A go-to move was “Backpack Kid” an arms-swishing, hip-wagging 2017 Katy Perry phenomenon, Lane said, “And you’d be like, ‘hold on, you’re supposed to be calling people and asking them for money.'”

“I know a lot of people who manage campaigns and they never really get close to their candidates or they leave not having good experiences,” Lane said. “Whereas we lost but I had such a wonderful experience.”

Braddock said she doesn’t expect to ever run for office again. She’s realized, she said, she’s a hard worker, comfortable behind the scenes.

But she is no longer behind the scenes.

She remembers advice her dad gave her when she was young: “Luck is a part of life but it doesn’t matter if you’re not prepared.”

“And so I think this is one of those times, (whether I consider it lucky or not)” she said. “This is an opportunity I have in front of me, and I’m prepared for it and ready to do it.”