Update (as of Tuesday, 4 p.m.):

Position 6: Mayor Tom Vance trails with 45.87 percent to opponent Tom Hornish’s 53.96 percent, with 8,795 votes counted so far.

Position 2: Christie Malchow leads with 58.65 percent to Mark Cross’ 41.22 percent, with 8,926 votes counted.

Position 4: Incumbent Ramiro Valderrama-Aramayo has 83.36 percent approval to Hank Klein’s 16.07 percent, 8,532 votes tallied.

King County will post the next update Thursday at 4:30 p.m.

The three candidates who raised the most money in this year’s Sammamish City Council election are leading in their respective council races, according to election results released Wednesday.

The three, Tom Hornish, Position 6; incumbent councilor Ramiro Valderrama-Aramayo, Position 4; and Christie Malchow, Position 2, formed a tight alliance during the race and collectively, raised more than $39,000, according to the Public Disclosure Commission.

After King County released initial election results Tuesday evening, Sammamish Mayor Tom Vance was holding out “faint hope” that he could pull ahead against Hornish, a first-time council candidate.

As of Wednesday evening, Vance was up less than a full percentage from Tuesday’s results but still trails 45.66 percent to Hornish’s 54.97 percent, with 6,047 votes counted so far.

“It would take a huge change to make a dent in this,” Vance said before Wednesday’s results were in. “This has been a really strange election.”

He said he knows many people who voted within the last week, even up until the Nov. 3 deadline.

After those votes are tallied, “we’ll have to live with the results,” he said.

Hornish raised more than $4,300, more than five times more than opponent Vance.

Vance has been the Sammamish mayor for almost two years; this was his first term on the City Council.

In Position 2, Malchow raised $5,500 more than her opponent, former Councilmember Mark Cross.

She has 59.18 percent of the vote to Cross’ 40.69 percent, with 6,139 votes counted as of Wednesday evening.

Longtime Councilmember Nancy Whitten will vacate the seat at the end of the year.

Malchow said she was surprised by the nearly 20 percent lead she has on Cross. She thought it would be a closer race.

Either way, she wants to get to work immediately.

“I’m ready to start working now. There’s people to talk to still,” she said.

On the top of her list, she said, is to address the number of variances and wavers the city issues to developers.

She believes the city liberally grants these exceptions to city code and hopes to hold “everyone to the same standards” by only issuing them when there’s a proper reason, like public safety.

She also listed working on the urban forestry plan as a top priority.

Cross, an urban planner for the city of Bellevue, raised some concerns about a “quiet dismantling of environmental standards” the current council has worked to establish if Malchow, Hornish and Valderrama-Aramayo are elected. Cross said only time will tell, but he hopes citizens will keep the next council accountable.

Vance echoed Cross’ concerns.

“Citizens over the next couple years are going to have to pay really close attention to environmental regulations,” Vance said. “Are they really going to get behind an urban forestry program next year?”

Admittedly, Vance said, “it’s too close to me right now to have any kind of perspective.”

Vance said he received many phone calls in the last week or so from citizens looking for some clarity about the candidate’s various platforms and who was supporting what issues.

“There’s a lot of confusion out there,” he said. “I blame myself to some degree.”

Hornish was still grappling Wednesday morning with the reality of potentially winning Vance’s seat. “Oh gosh, here we go,” he said.

His main priority will be improving communication between the city and its residents.

“That’s what I want to bring to the council more than anything else,” he said. “There’s a big difference between just talking and actually communicating.”

In Position 4, Valderrama-Aramayo, who was essentially running unopposed, earned 83.24 percent of the vote, with 5,886 votes tallied as of Wednesday. His opponent, Hank Klein, received 16.32 percent.

Valderrama-Aramayo was surprised by Klein’s low vote total, considering some people were leading a three-week doorbelling campaign for Klein, he said.

Klein dropped out of the race several months ago and has reportedly not collected any contributions, according the PDC.

Valderrama-Aramayo raised the most out of the five running candidates, more than $13,500, during the campaign season.

However, he was not surprised to see Malchow and Hornish ahead in their races.

“There was a very clear mandate that was given to the council: They want citizens to be heard,” he said.

These candidates ran on the issues of improved communications and transparency.

With the three of them, Valderrama-Aramayo suspects the council will slow down on policy changes and will spend more time in review and in gathering citizen input.

“All the council members will have to be more receptive now,” he said. “We’re not here to rubber stamp what the city wants done. We will take our time and deliberate.”

King County Elections will continue to update results in all area races until results are certified Nov. 24.

Reporting on this story was contributed by Daniel Nash.