Thank goodness for low-drama primaries, finally.

Hi SECB. You might want to add that our primaries are top-two, not by party. That would help newbies to Washington or newbies to voting. It also explains why a strong showing for the Dem in the primary is important; the primary is a preview of the general. xo

Javier Valdez has the distinction of being included on the cheat sheet and his entire race being ignored on the "formal" endorsements page, lol.

This is one of the lamest, least informed set of endorsements I have seen from the Stranger in years. If this is the best you can do, why bother at all? Where do I even begin?

In the 5th LD, you endorse Ramos, fine, but you totally ignore Position 2, where Democratic incumbent Lisa Callan faces an out-and-out fascist, Chad Magendanz, an enemy of public education trying for a House comeback. He needs to be defeated. You needed to endorse Callan.

In the 34th, you endorse a Jenny Durkan administration bureaucrat who pulls down a six-figure salary to combat homeless, and hasn't accomplished jack shit, over a progressive feminist battler against toxic masculinity and misogyny over a broad range of issues, who is clearly the superior candidate and better campaigner, certainly according to Joe Nguyen, who nobody should have any problem endorsing.

In the 36th, you fail even to mention the best candidate in the race, Jeff Manson, a thoughtful, knowledgeable progressive with a long history of grass-roots activism in the district, and a solid record of working-class advocacy as an administrative law judge.

And in the 47th, you base your endorsement of Olow over the experienced, progressive Native American attorney Chris Stearns on her greater enthusiasm for stopping highway construction? Give me a break! Who the hell do you think the electorate is there? It sure as hell isn't Capitol Hill urbanist moonbats, living in their density bubble. Until light rail comes to Kent, Auburn, and Covington, the voters there will need highways, and will vote accordingly. Your endorsement of Olow on those grounds might well have torpedoed her candidacy altogether.

You got Reeves right. you got Farivar right. The ones you got wrong, though, you got WAY wrong.

Shame on the SECB for endorsing Adam Smith over Stephanie Gallardo. Clearly viewing the election through a defeatist and ultimately pro-capitalist lens. They admit that Smith is garbage, a "standard Democrat in 'progressive' clothing" who supports the Green New Deal and M4A on paper only. They say he "knows which levers to pull," but what's the use in that if he only pulls them for his donors? Standard liberal lesser-evilism. They fret about someone worse than Smith chairing Armed Services while openly admitting Smith has blood on his hands.

While the SECB is playing 4D chess, let's get a class-struggle, socialist candidate on the November ballot. Seattle DSA is canvassing nearly every day. Join us: https://seattledsa.org/events/

Adam Smith? Over Stephanie Gallardo? No amount of 'he's a weasel disclaimers' makes this ok.

Salomon endorsed the "detain and pursuit" SB 5919 legislation. He said it was a minor tweak to even out the reforms that were passed last year. He's vice chair of natural resources and parks committee but couldn't see quite what the problem was with stealth military ops training in state parks. We had to fight that without his help. He really does suck. There are reasons that the 32nd LD is supporting a relatively new candidate. We know that we don't want a second term of this.
He got in with a lot of real estate PAC money running a sleazy attack campaign last time. This time he can do that again with a Stranger editorial board endorsement. No thanks Stranger.

Wow, I am absolutely floored that The Stranger would even consider endorsing Adam Smith and his wholehearted support of the US war machine. Your condescending comments about Gallardo prove that you did absolutely no research into her or her platform, which includes plans that are realistic and well-articulated. I had thought better about The Stranger, but I suppose this alignment with right-wing corporate Democrats was bound to come sooner or later.

The Stranger has completely abandoned any sense of progress or principle with this horrific list of endorsements. I'm incredibly disappointed.

If I had wanted to read endorsements from The Seattle Times, I would have gone to their website 🙄

Fuck "lived and learned experience" if it doesn't equate to political savvy, competence, bottom-line accomplishment and the ability to persuade those who aren't already persuaded on your side.

“Yes, we are endorsing Adam Smith’s 14 millionth term in office. No, we are not happy about it.”

Then don’t? You can’t pretend to be progressive and then endorse this guy. It doesn’t matter how much you pretend to hate him if you are literally telling people to vote for him.

Also, Gallardo is an amazing candidate. Her policy platform is one of the best I’ve seen. It even put Jayapal’s to shame and that’s saying something.

Honestly, this was a dead simple decision and you all screwed it up. You decided to endorse the guy who’s only ever lifted a finger for his corporate donors over a progressive woman and education with ties to organized labors. Just baffling.

Why the silence on the 46th LD Position 1?

Dear Stranger —
Hate to say I told you so, but there were plenty of signs that J. Salomon sucked 4 years ago, yet you still endorsed him then too. (You really should seek professional help to get out of this abusive relationship.) Last time you should have endorsed steadfast liberal, Maralyn Chase. This time you should support Patricia Weber. There’s still time to fix your mistake.
https://suepeters4schoolboard.org/2018/10/13/open-letter-to-the-stranger-about-its-erratic-endorsements-and-why-it-should-endorse-maralyn-chase-for-state-senate/

https://suepeters4schoolboard.org/2018/10/29/why-have-the-wa-realtors-pac-the-ceo-of-john-l-scott-real-estate-launched-a-smear-campaign-against-state-senator-chase-also-monsanto-merck-chevron-stand-for-children-fund-candidate-je/

https://suepeters4schoolboard.org/2018/11/05/top-10-reasons-to-vote-for-maralyn-chase-for-state-senate/

https://www.votepatweber.com

— SMP

Always thought The Stranger was really politically spineless & often tries to hide it behind insufferable suburban snark, but begrudgingly endorsing Smith over Gallardo is quite impressively chickenshit behavior

Really starting to wonder just how progressive The Stranger is with a completely awful list of endorsements. What kind of spineless act are y’all pulling by endorsing Smith over Gallardo for the most naive and shallow reasons? Does he have dirt on someone in the SECB or something?

Republicans win because they energize their base. What about Adam Smith is waking Democrats up in the morning? Y’all could have chosen to just not endorse anyone too

Y’all also missed several important primaries as others have pointed out in the comments.

I swear whoever made that endorsement has to be a man who isn’t at risk of having their liberties further stripped away in this country. A democrat tied to military industrial complex does not give a shit about the reproductive rights of women. Heck y’all acknowledge how he won’t advance any progressive legislation yourself!

Well guess when people ask me for local news recommendations I’ll say “Seattle Times and The Stranger are both corporate bs”. Cancelling my donations

lefty temper tantrum

Ah so r/SeattleWA readers are reading The Stranger now. Their endorsements make a lot more sense

Lmao if you look through aramisdc‘s comments (@ 17) literally all they do is shit on anything The Stranger writes or wants to spout their opposite opinion of the comment section. Lmao homie get a life. At least we just shit on them over one article

Anyone can see that Adam Smith is pretty much guaranteed to make it through the primary. So what you've really done is make it much more likely that one of the Republican candidates will be in the general rather than another Democrat. You've brought the red wave to our doorstep.

Why Steve Hobbs over Marquez Tiggs? Admittedly all I know of Tiggs is from his Ballotopedia page, but he seems a pretty normal ex military progressive and is very concerned with expanding and preserving voters rights.

Also, agreed with the general uproar around y'all supporting Smith. That's just tacky and weirdly fear based for a primary. I didn't used to read the expanded voter guide from Stranger too closely but seeing Smith's name on there (he's not even on MY ballot, but I know who tf he is and who's trying to primary him!!) sent me to that bizarro world mediocre centrist legitimisation above. Taking your guides with an ocean of salt from now on.

we kept putting off taking the time to study the candidates. thank goodness we found this convenient endorsement sheet. we are simply going to clip it out of la weekly and use these wise and well thought-out recommendations to inform our own choices.
lexi cortez/mitt romney 2024.

In Washington, a student could put their ballot in any mailbox of someone trusted with consent. I don't know if not putting a ballot drop box at every college in Pierce county remotely compares to not giving felons the right to vote if they weren't sentenced to complete confinement or they served their time but were still in debt. Hobbs voted on this, ESHB 1078, just last year, unlike almost every other Democrat in the Senate, not 9 years ago. If the Secretary of State was a nonpartisan office, "District Democrat" organizations would be compelled to interview those who aren't a "Democrat" for once and make a clear endorsement of a candidate that anyone would notice if that's the kind of stereotype they're looking for.

If you want to go back over 9 years to compare candidates on different terms, Hobbs also voted against the National Popular Vote Act. A complete disregard of Democracy.

Endorsing Adam Smith over Gallardo: SECB is gutless. Personally, I'd want to see how the vote actually broke down, since you're usually not quite this bad. But I'd bet the pro-Smith voters would be too embarrassed, eh?

Your endorsement doesn't even make sense. Vote Smith to keep the right out? This is a top-two primary with two people running as Democrats (Gallardo, Smith) and one Republican. Smith is all but guaranteed to be in the top two for the primary, so your endorsement is making it more likely for a Republican to be in a general election that favors Republicans. Absolutely hilarious for an endorsement that twists itself into a pretzel trying to be clever.

@21 I looked into Tiggs too. Seems like a decent progressive guy but no money, no endorsements, no relevant experience of any kind. (He should maybe run for city council or something else local.) Hobbs it has to be, warts and all.

Looks like SECB missed Legislative District 46, Position 1

@30 Personally I'd rather have 10 percent inflation than 10 percent (likely more) unemployment, which is what we'd be seeing now if the inflation hawks had had their way a year ago. Disagreement on this point is reasonable, and if we had a responsible, adult, center-right party in this country that's a legitimate debate the two parties could have. But the current party duopoly consists of corporate-compromised albeit socially tolerant mediocrities versus rage-filled, hard-right populist reactionaries who hate LGBTs, people of color (especially immigrants, "legal" or not) and most women, and who want to end democratic elections, public education, all efforts to mitigate climate change, and most other legitimate public-sector functions. It's not even a close call which to vote for.

Adam Smith and Patty Murray?

Congratulations Matt Baume and Dan Savage, you picked two awful politicians.

@32 Patty Murray is the only choice we have, unless you too are in the "let's empower Republicans to burn down the planet, because inflation" camp like @30.

But I agree that endorsing Adam Smith against a strong, electable progressive strikes me as an unusually timid move for the Stranger, and perhaps a tactically unwise one as @26 argues, though I don't think Smith is in serious trouble regardless. If I were in that district I'd vote for Gallardo.

@33 She’s not though. And this is a primary, not the general election.

I noticed there is no Stranger endorsement for Washington's 2nd District Congressman Rick Larsen, D-Arlington, whose campaign has raised a lot of money so far, and is far ahead of the competition. Is it because Larsen is open to accept outside PAC $$$$$$$$, including from the fossil fuel industry?

@30 Wow, Err Boob. Your MAGA buttcrack must be deeper than the Grand Canyon. Do us a favor and fall in.
You and your Twitter-misinformed ilk couldn't pay me enough to vote for Trump ho Tiffany Smiley (the name alone sounds like a hopelessly bimbotic game show hostess) or any of Pramila Jayapal's batshit-GOP opponents.

@31 and @33 CKathes: For the WIN!! Hear, hear!

@32 and @34: I agree with CKathes on incumbent Senator Murray. Patty is our only choice, especially if any of us, particularly women, can still have the right to choose. Why does Adam Smith remind me of Rodney Tom? Must be because it's a tale of two weasels. Gallardo sounds like the better choice than Smith.

@35 Thanks! The Stranger does make a convincingly cogent argument for Smith -- in the general election, against a Republican opponent. They should have saved it for fall.

(I noticed at least one commenter drew a comparison to the City Attorney fiasco, but it doesn't really apply. Gallardo is far more electable than NTK was, and Smith is far less vulnerable than Holmes was. Gallardo ultimately may not win, but it's unlikely you'll regret voting for her.)

Herrbrahms is the dude who insisted all of downtown was “boarded up” because of BLM. You can disregard that MAGA dipshit.

@35 Patty isn’t our only choice. It’s a primary. We have other people to the left of her who should be getting attention, like Ravin Pierre or Henry Dennison. Patty Murray has tripped over her own feet for a long time in the senate, and she needs to go.

Sure, cast a protest vote against Murray if you like. It's going to be her versus the smiley one in the general no matter what, and clearly there's only one sane choice there, so go ahead and have your harmless bit of fun now.

I'm not a huge Patty Murray fan or anything, but I only protest-vote for candidates who I think would be preferable to the incumbent, and I just don't see one in this race. YMMV.

NTK is a prison abolitionist. Which Many rich, mostly white people hate.

Got to keep punishing the people at the bottom right?
Actually she got a sizable vote. Ignore the corporate crooks and bankers that are killing us so Harrell was put in.

Remember the small group of abolitionists before the civil war? They were not popular either with the status quo lovers.

Its genocide against the homeless people by this city government.

17 dead on the street in April.

Good example is Vienna, Austria, possibly the most livable city in the world with their social housing which 60% of their population use. Seattle is so backward among the world’s wealthy cities in many ways.

I don't get endorsing Smith over Gallardo either. Gallardo is a breath of fresh air who'd raise Squad to new levels where they're sorely lacking: anti-imperialism and foreign policy. I've been watching them fork over billions for Nazis in Ukraine - and I'm appalled. We need people in there, besides the populist right, who will also stand up and say, "hell no," and with a slightly different twist on some of the same reasoning. So definitely vote for Gallardo and ignore the Stranger.

Sec of State. I do not want to vote for Inslee's appointment because he is another paranoid Russophobe who wants the NSA/CIA inspecting our elections - and in a system in Washington State that is pretty good compared to the rest of the nation. If you have your head squarely on your shoulders, the last people you want "inspecting your elections" are the people who rig them while overthrowing governments the world over. Yes, it means they'll be rigging ours here in Washington State too.

Which brings us to Anderson. I am not that concerns by Stranger's concerns about non-partisans for election office positions .. I am concerned about her views in the 2013 article about campus drop boxes. However, that "was" 9 years ago; has anyone bothered to ask if her views have changed? That was Stranger's job and they dropped the ball when they had her right there in person.

From what I'm seeing of her current campaign, she wants to expand access for the disabled (which implies a shift in the views she expressed in 2013) .. she also wants to provide ballot translations in something like 10 languages, exceeding the requirements of the Voting Rights Act. This also implies her views may have "evolved" .. though I don't know, of course, because no reporters bothered to find out.

But apart from that - the big thing that I like about Anderson: her main thrust is ranked choice voting -- if you visit her website -- which I strongly support (RCV). I'd love to see that move forward - and she sounds well qualified to do so. And Mr. CIA is actually against it - like most establishment totally out of the steps with the times -- and in his case, for some flimsy reasons about his mother not being able to figure out how rank her votes from 1-4 or whatever. That's very strange logical reasoning for someone who's supposed to protect your right to vote. It puts very close to opposing it.

I'm also very sick and tired of the Democrats' hallucinations about Russians in our elections for how many GD years now 24/7 on MSM. Putting their CIA guy in ours, here in Washington State, is indeed a type of partisanship in the Sec of State's office that doesn't belong there. I agree with Anderson, minimally, that the SOS should be non-partisan in spirit (whether or not an official regulation makes it so). And whether the position is technically called "non-partisan," or it's partisan with an independent, Democrat or Republican -- Mr. CIA is not non-partisan, and he should be.

@39, I'm with you, but I don't see any alternatives to Patty Murray except a protest write-in (which I may exercise). I'd like to vote for a socialist, but Dennison doesn't even put up any social media accounts - you can hardly find him anywhere. I mean, who is he? And I was also interested Ravin but when he went into "Fk Putin," I said, well, I don't want to vote for an ignorant Russophobe, let alone send them to Congress to send more billions to Nazis in the Ukraine. In fact, for a write-in, my consideration is writing in "Stop Arming Ukraine." So anyone who wants to join me in a "Stop Arming Ukraine" write-in for Patty Murray, I think this would be a good time (she is inevitable, after all).

Lastly I'm not convinced one should vote for Valdez over Gross. I like Valdez' equity perspective, but housing is such an enormous issue that is so enormously neglected. It's refreshing to me to see someone like Gross saying, "This is my main purpose in going into office. To end homelessness. And get more affordable housing." Sure, he may not know where to get all this money - and he sounds a bit naive, running, and not having anything prepared in advance to share there .. but .. he seems like a responsible person and he doesn't seem corrupt .. he seems genuinely determined about this issue, he's not establishment, he's running against the Dem Party machinery candidate. (Valdez is moving up the ladder and every endorsement is locked in, etc.) I think I'd give him a shot -- see what he can do. What are we actually going to get with Valdez? What's the worst that could happen, given how these Dems do nothing on this issue. There's no spoiler issue in the race -- the only other candidate is insane and virtually no one will vote for him. So give Gross a shot. He probably won't win anyway - but he does and if he's no good - throw him out. If Valdez goes in, he'll be there forever, doing "not much," like most establishment Dems. Then maybe one day he'll go to the U.S. Congress too - where he'll do nothing except when the insurance companies tell him to vote against single payer (or some other disappointment we see over and over again with the Democrats).

@43 Putin's absurd claim that Ukraine is somehow controlled by its tiny fascist fringe has been thoroughly debunked by many authoritative, nonpartisan fact-checkers. They're easy to find online so I won't go into that here. But Ravin Pierre strikes me as unserious at best and schizo-paranoid at worst ("If I serve more than two terms, I go to prison ... mic drop") and Henry Dennison is proudly "anti-woke" (i.e., cryptic white supremacist) despite his "socialist worker" self-identity. Neither has any future whatsoever in elective politics and neither would be an improvement over Murray in office. Again, I'm not opposed to protest voting when the risks are minimal and there's a dark-horse candidate worth supporting, but there just aren't any in the U.S Senate race.

@44 Yes, well what I'm saying can be found on the internet, too, despite NSA and State Dept censorship, and you might have to work a little harder than being merely a passive recipient of MIC fueled MSM coming into what remains of your ability to think over your tv.

Zelensky is a dictator in the true and technical sense of the term, outlawing opposition parties, arresting and imprisoning journalists and dissidents, racist laws, widespread public torture, black site (probably with CIA involvement). Let's not play this naivity game; certain people stand to make a lot of money with this war. Our own press, prior to the Feb offensive, has widely reported on the Nazism in Ukraine, and this ideology, based on Stepan Bandera - a Ukrainian Nazi who participated in the Holocaust, these groups, are effectively in political control in terms of policy and decisions, so it's not just some little isolated issue or "Russian propaganda."

As far as I'm concerned, handing 60 billion dollars of our tax money, virtually overnight, and without oversight to speak of, andd to a corrupt regime - you can find that too on google - is a direct reflection on the need to investigate Biden and the Democratic Party -- esp keeping in mind how Americans are being thrown overboard in terms of the real bread and butter issues. We are sinking economically with one major issue after the next in this country going fully unaddressed.

Newsflash: this war started in 2014 with a U.S. supported Nazi coup of a democratically elected government, and under VP Biden. It was preceded by years of agreement-breaking and NATO encroachment on an area that should be a neutral and dimilitarized buffer state -- in the interests of not only Russia, but Ukraine itself, all of Europe, the United States and the entire world.

And please don't hand me that NATO line that they can do whatever they want on their side of a border. No nation has that right. If Russia lined up missiles pointing at every major U.S. city in Mexico or Canada, promoting genocide of 330 million Americans - and as the Ukronazi gov and television have done -- we would have gone in long before Russia did.

Not saying Russia is right about everything, but they are justified here, and probably under international law too. None of these Ukrainian flag wavers have cared at all about the children and civliians in Donbas who've been bombed and shelled by their own government for over eight years - and none of them are willing to fight this war themselves. They just want to serve up their forced conscripts after 80% of the professional Ukrainian army, including many officers, have been destroyed.

This war started in 2014, thanks to the war mongering Obama administration. Joe Biden committed a great by omission when he ran for office without telling the American public that a war in Ukraine was his main objective for the presidency.

I, for one, don't want to pay for it. I want my tax dollars - which I fork over greatly - and at great economic pain - going to issues in the U.S., on behalf of Americans - not starting a nuclear or 3rd WW with a country that has legitimate national security and human rights interests in the region.

This conflict was entirely preventable. They've been trying to negotiate for 8 years - Zelensky is a State Dept puppet who lied to get elected, and our clowns in Washington don't care about real peace. So don't give their CIA-State Dept MIC propaganda on behalf of Raytheon and Wall St.

And don't lecture me on how to vote, either. I'm not here to vote for you and your pocketbook.

Taylor and Farivar are the frontrunners in 46, to me, and I like them both, but Melissa seems a more solid and dependable choice on the bread and butter pragmatics, as well as the grassroots organizing. Plus she has some local union endorsements that are important.

All of the women seem like good candidates, but the doctors are opposed to rent control and state single payer, too, I believe. Martinez also supports rent control, but her big thing is gun control which is not my priority, as a voter; and for me, at the domestic level, the "devil is in the details."

Any of these candidates, I'm sure, would support reasonable legislation at the local level. In terms of gun control, I'm more concerned by the hypocrisy in our government. How so many so-called gun control advocates (no one in that group being referenced - more about Congress) have no problem handing over 60 billion dollars for weapons being used to bomb and kill civilians, including children, in Donbas, and with many of these weapons now flooding the black markets in Europe, and even being sold on eBay. I wouldn't be surprised if some find their way back into the U.S. black markets too.

But bottomline -- I'm far more concerned about the economics of living - who will have the intelligence, grit and proverbial "balls" (or "ovaries") to fight hard on that front. I think Melissa Taylor looks the most up to the job.

An excellent resource for elective inversion.
When I fill in the form I verify that nothing matches the Stranger's recommendations and vote the opposite.
Thank you for helping the red wave!
One day we will take the power and all y'all will be sorry.