Oh, wait, you actually want me to put my completed ballot in the free dropbox?

OK Mom

"The early infusion of big money could allow business and real estate interests to bury their progressive opponents under negative mailers . . . ."

Doesn't everyone immediately dump those mailers in the recycle bin, along with the rest of their junk mail?

Here we go with the dog whistles of the progressive left in this town: In the pocket of big business, hates the poor, racists and of course is being supported by the ultra secret Trump cabal that someone runs Seattle even though literally no one in Seattle voted for him in 2020.

Interesting to see far lefties here at the Stranger adopting that weird verbal tic the Republicans have long used, intentionally calling the Democratic Party by the incorrect term, “Democrat” party. I guess Horseshoe Theory wins another round…

Exactly, use their formal name, the GQP Russian Extremist Backers party, like everyone else does.

The Stranger: helping elect Trump is disqualifying and anybody who took part should be disqualified from participating in Seattle politics forever!*

*Not applicable to Kshama Sawant

I don't think spending has much of an influence. Yes, Harrell benefited, but mostly because González ran a terrible campaign, and Harrell is generally well liked. If you look at the other races it is the same thing. Nicole Thomas-Kennedy was a terrible candidate. But The Stranger endorsement (and mistakes made by Holmes) allowed her to squeak into the general. She then got crushed by Davison. Not because Davison was a good candidate, but because NTK was terrible. Same with Nelson. The main reason Sara Nelson is on the city council is because The Stranger endorsed Oliver over the much stronger candidate (Thomas). It is the way our voting works. If you nominate a really bad candidate, the candidate will lose. Money has little to do with it.

In this case it is highly likely that Costa and Saka were going to face off in the general anyway. They are 1/2 in number of contributors, and have the most endorsements. Costa should win the general easily. District 4 is different. Wilson is actually second in contributions, while Rivera has more endorsements. Still, this looks like a race to see who can lose to Ron Davis, who should win the seat quite easily.

@15 I don’t see how you get Ron Davis winning easily when he espouses the same policy position as Morales, Sawant and Shaun Scott. He may win because there are a lot of voters who won’t look beyond the platitudes but it will be close.

I am confused. The title specifically refers to "Trumper" money - but the article offers nothing of the sort.

Could no actual examples of money being provided by verified Trump supporters be found?

Here's a purely gedanken experiment: Step #1: find someone who has given money to the republicans/trump in Seattle, ( oh, check out any of the big developers). Step #2: Give them $2500 to donate $500 to your opponent. Step#3: slam your opponent for being a trump donee. Not that any campaign manager would ever stoop so low as that [eyes-skywards]

@15, @19: Indeed, in the 2021 primary election, NTK received the plurality, beating a multi-term incumbent by over 10,000 votes. In the general, Davison received less than 52% of the vote; NTK lost by fewer than four percent. Those were not the performances of a terrible candidate.

The big news from that general election was a Seattle electorate choosing a Republican, for the first time in over thirty years. With Holmes out of the general election, NTK became the status quo candidate (as even the Stranger’s endorsement of her had backhandedly admitted) and Seattle voters hated the status quo.