Seattle Swings Back

I’m sure you have heard by now that Tuesday’s election was a great night for Seattle progressives.

While the specifics were not predictable, the direction of the election sure was.

After last Fall’s campaigns, signs started pointing leftward. By the time we had a special election in February, it was clear that Seattle’s conservative backlash era was over. Polls since have repeatedly confirmed that our Republican and conservative Dem politicians are extremely unpopular, as is our moderate-ish Mayor.

In 2021 and 2023, Seattle’s centrist politicians rode into office on the perception of progressive overreach. They claimed they just wanted a dash of moderation, and that they supported comprehensive solutions (like progressives!) to things like gun violence and drug abuse. It was obvious to insiders that these were lies penned by their political consultants to make some of obviously conservative Democrats more palatable, but much of the media didn’t call them on it. Then they governed much more like legitimately conservative Dems and it hasn’t gone well for them.

In any case, in what Publicola cleverly called the “Fuck Trump effect” - it seems that Democratic candidates who are conservative enough to share some of Trump’s signature policies, rhetoric, or funding base, have all faired poorly. Examples:

Policy

• Sara Nelson’s long hostility to the evidence-based “housing first” policies to combat homelessness, her weird belief “abstinence only” is a real public policy when it comes to addiction, and her hostility to higher minimum wages or taxing the rich

• Bruce Harrell’s huge budget cuts to affordable housing to avoid a small tax increase on corporations, or his frittering away our shelter budget by spending big on sweeps but failing to provide housing

• Ann Davison’s the-crystals-will-heal-me belief that holding people “accountable" for addiction is either effective or morally just way to treat a medical condition, her feuding with the judiciary (Also, Ann Davison is an actual Republican)

Rhetoric

• Nelson and Harrell’s vague statements about government efficiency as a cover to cut programs they dislike and avoid raising taxes without actually doing anything about efficiency

• Harrell, Nelson and Davison’s fearmongering about street disorder and crime to sell more punitive policies, sounding a lot like a Sinclair-owned “news” outlet

Funders

• All three have received significant support from the rich, corporations, and Republicans

While none of this makes any of them (except Ann Davison) Republicans, these areas of overlap certainly cannot be helping them in a moment when the Trump administration is sending groups of masked thugs to kidnap innocent people and disappear them to torture prisons.

In any case, the Seattle that swung toward the center-right over these last few years did not sign up for many of these more conservative policies. During their campaigns, many of these politicians obscured just how rightward they wanted to take the city.

Had they governed like actual moderate, mainstream Dems (think Dow Constantine), they might have had a fighting chance today. But Nelson and Davison didn’t remotely bother, and they are both cooked. Harrell sometimes remembered to be more moderate than, say, Nelson, so he still has a chance. But he still swung much farther to the right than he campaigned on, and now he’s in the fight of his political life. He’s also got a formidable challenger in Katie Wilson, who is kind, brilliant, and who has managed a campaign that is firing on all cylinders.

While we already have a good sense of where the primary vote shares will end up, the numbers will keep moving (left, usually, but not every day) until after the Friday afternoon drop, when the figures will mostly stabilize.

At the moment, in the Mayoral race, Katie Wilson leads Harrell 47.7% to 43.8.% She is also very likely to pick up Ry Armstrong and Joy Malloy’s voters, who together equal about 1.5% of the total. With a bit more leftward shift in the coming days, it is possible the the progressives could cross 50%.

Where Joe Mallahan’s 4.6% of voters will land is tougher to predict, as his public statements didn’t put him in a consistent political “lane.” He surely attracted some big business types and Harrell’s cooing about low taxes will win them over, but Mallahan also campaigned aggressively against Harrell, says he is much more progressive than Harrell, and been complementary of Wilson. I’ll write more about this race later, but suffice it to say, it is neck and neck and big business is about to write Harrell a big check (again).

Sara Nelson is done. An incumbent failing to break 50% is usually a very bad sign. She is at 38%. Her challenger—Dionne Foster—has worked for years on important progressive causes. Still, she has mostly held back from sharply criticizing Nelson, and significantly trailed Nelson in fundraising. But Foster earned a staggering 55.8%, trouncing Nelson by nearly 18 points. Nelson is unpopular, and on the wrong side of so many issues with Seattle voters - she looked extremely vulnerable. But now she looks like toast.

Republican Ann Davison is in an even deeper hole. Her opponent, Erika Evans, a former Justice Department prosecutor, is famously charismatic on the campaign trail and far more credentialed than Davison. Let’s just say the progressives acquitted themselves quite well in this race! Davison (36%) trails Evans (53%) by more than 17 points. But the next top two vote-getters (Rory O'Sullivan and Nathan Rouse) were at least as progressive as Evans - all, or almost all of their 10.7% of votes will go to her. This race looks more like a 27 point spread. Maybe Ann can go back to filming videos to recruit people into the MAGA party.

In District 2, Adonis Duckworth is the centrist candidate, stuck at about 30%. The winning progressive, Eddie Lin, is at 46%, and the two more stalwart progressives to his left have another 23 points between them, almost all of which will go to Lin. Ducksworth is not an incumbent, so his low numbers aren’t a referendum on him. This gives him more wiggle room to bring people to his side than the incumbent. But it is hard to see how he climbs out of this hole. Lin is a strong favorite here.

For Position 8, Alexis Mercedes Rinck is at a giggle-inducing 76.5% of the vote, savaging her kooky Republican opponent, Rachel Savage, who is at 14%. Of note, Councilmembers Maritza Rivera and Sara Nelson and former conservative councilmember Tanya Woo recently held a fundraiser for Ray Rodgers, who earned 4.6% of the vote. Since Rinck was certain to win this race, their efforts seem like nothing more than an attempt to spit in the face of their colleague. It looks like it didn’t work, though.

King County

The King County race is extremely important, but tends to fly a bit more under the radar. Because the Seattle Times Editorial board doesn’t do nearly as much fixating on King County politics, that council has far more progressive leadership (think Jorge Baron, Teresa Mosqueda, Girmay Zahilay). Still, when it comes to full countywide voting patterns, voters are a bit more moderate than Seattle proper.

Yet here we saw progressive Girmay Zahilay leap into the lead at 42% to more centrist Claudia Balducci’s 30%. Since Balducci has publicly aligned herself with more conservative interests (endorsing a camping-ban Mayor who has picked fights with King County, endorsed a different anti-minimum-wage candidate—both against progressives, and talked up budget cuts and refused to sign the letter asking the legislature to tax the rich to save basic services), she is likely to pick up most of the conservative Dem and Republican votes (20.8%). But not necessarily all of them. Republicans are also likelier to stay home in this race, and Zahilay is also likely to see a leftward shift in his favor before this race is certified, and another similar shift in the general election. He also has a substantial fundraising advantage. I see a straightforward path to 47% or 48% for either of these two, and then a tough fight after that.

There are also a few relevant legislative seats to consider. These are usually decided in even years, so it will be a tougher environment for these folks. Still, in Issaquah, Maple Valley and Renton, Democrat, Victoria Hunt, is beating Republican Chad Magendanzby a bit in their fight for a Senate Seat. In Redmond/Bellevue/Kirkland, progressive Vendana Slatter is decisively beating her centrist House colleague Amy Walen in their fight for the Senate seat. And in South King County, incumbent appointee and progressive Edwin Obras is leading conservative Democrat Kevin Schilling, who has been picking a fight with the King County Sheriff’s office for being too woke about how it treats homeless people. But as the totals stand, Schilling looks likely to collect enough Republican votes to put him over 50% in the general, so I hope to see Obras make more gains in the coming days, and again with a larger electorate in November.