Big business bought the current city council, and progressives have decided to try to buy it back. A group of disgruntled campaign workers and failed candidates launched Progressive People Power (P3) PAC, an independent expenditure (IE) that plans to fundraise for the leftmost candidate that makes it out of the primary. They aim to even the playing field with conservative opponents, who often attract hundreds of thousands in donations from real estate tycoons, CEOs, and other wealthy waterfront homeowners.
At their very first fundraiser on Tuesday night, P3 raised $17,400 from 43 donors, and King County Democrats Chair Carrie Barnes pledged to match the contributions, bringing the total for the night up to nearly $35,000. For now, they say the money will go to electing Alexis Mercedes Rinck to the citywide council seat to replace the council’s nepotistic appointee, Tanya Woo. But over the next few cycles, they intend to “fight fire with fire” and buy a new city council that will reject the current council’s corporatist agenda that’s threatened minimum wage laws, resurrected racist tough-on-crime policies, sacrificed social programs to avoid taxing their wealthy donors, and stifled dissent at every turn.
The Art of Buying an Election
IEs wield a lot of power in Seattle elections, particularly because the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission limits the amount of money that individuals can give directly to campaigns and how much a campaign can fundraise at all. Historically, two powers—big business and organized labor—launch IEs to fundraise and campaign for candidates who will represent their interests.
After a bloody and expensive battle for the council between IEs in 2019, both interests relaxed, but labor checked out almost entirely. In 2023, big business spent more than five times as much on their conservative candidates as labor spent on their preferred candidates. And, in the cases of the Districts 3 and 5, both labor and big business gave money to the more conservative candidates: Council Member Joy Hollingsworth, the architect of the failed tip-punishing law; and Council Member Cathy Moore, who brought back loitering laws.
Between their campaigns and IEs, in 2023 conservative candidates spent on average $22.44 per vote, whereas progressives spent $13.75 per vote, according to an analysis from The Stranger.
P3 board member Maren Costa ran for the District 1 seat on the city council in 2023. She advocated for progressive revenue, strong environmental policies, and workers rights. Costa easily scooped up endorsements from every major progressive board and sailed through the primary with a first-place showing, garnering 33 percent of the vote share. All of her competitors endorsed her over her opponent in the general election, big tech lawyer Rob Saka, despite aligning more with him ideologically.
But Saka had a secret weapon: The backing of wealthy donors. Elliot Bay Neighbors, an IE funded primarily by the real estate industry, spent more than $470,000 on campaign materials in support of Saka. Despite Costa’s strong labor background and worker-friendly platform, unions only spent about $84,000 on her council bid. With about five times more funding, Costa says Elliot Bay Neighbors “carpet-bombed” West Seattle with mailers that misinformed voters on her platform and stoked fear.
Saka won the general election with 54 percent of the vote.
“Last November, I left the campaign trail angry,” said Kyler Parris, Costa’s former campaign manager and a current P3 board member, at the fundraiser Tuesday. “Why was I angry? Because I watched progressives across the city lose because our hundreds of boots on the ground could not defeat a dozen corporate crony conservatives.”
Losers, Unite!
Parris is not alone in his anger. Candidates squashed by big business IEs in 2023 showed up to the fundraiser Tuesday to support the new IE, including Alex Hudson, who ran against Hollingsworth; Ron Davis, who ran against Council Member Maritza Rivera; former City Council Member Andrew Lewis, who was ousted by Council Member Bob Kettle; and Nilu Jenks, who came in third in the primary for District 5.
Davis says the progressives were “really organized” in 2023 when it came to door-knocking, fundraising within their own campaigns, and general people power. But P3 feels like the “missing piece” that could have won their races. His opponent, Rivera, enjoyed a remarkable 14 times more outside funding than Davis. Still, Rivera only beat him by 235 votes.
“I’m gonna make sure that doesn’t happen to another candidate ever again,” Davis tells The Stranger after pledging a donation to P3.
P3 Board Chair Ry Armstrong, who lost the District 3 race in the primary in 2023, doesn’t think it’ll cost that much to disrupt the dynamic. Armstrong says that progressives promote better, more popular policies and organize stronger ground game, so they won’t have to match every dollar corporate PACs spend. Though, Armstrong adds, P3 sure will try!
Lewis, who lost by a couple hundred votes last election, speculates that just $100,000 from an IE could have been the difference between a council with him and Davis and a council with Kettle and Rivera. He says that such a hypothetical body would have legislated differently. For example, Lewis repealed laws against loitering in 2020 because they disproportionately punish people of color, queer people, and poor people. Moore just successfully reinstated those laws. Lewis passed a minimum wage for gig delivery workers, though he did water it down. Council President Sara Nelson launched a crusade to repeal that wage, though she wasn’t successful, as Lewis notes.
Purity Test
But if P3 just gives their support to anyone marginally to the left of their opponent, then candidates may not face consequences for voting out of line with progressive values. For example, Lewis partly owes his 2019 victory to UNITE HERE! Local 8, which spent almost $900,000 on his race. But when he “disappointed” the union in office, they didn’t spend a dime on his re-election campaign. This strategy saves the union money and hopefully teaches future candidates a lesson about loyalty.
On the other side, while P3 intends to support the leftmost candidate, voters have seen IEs leave lefty candidates out to dry in the general election. For example, labor rallied around Moore instead of her leftward competitor, ChrisTiana ObeySumner, in 2023. Similarly, in 2019, progressive IEs spent hundreds of thousands on white candidates—Council Members Lewis, Dan Strauss, and Lisa Herbold—and much less on people of color who ran further left—Shaun Scott and Kshama Sawant.
It’s unclear where P3 will draw the line in future elections.
“We are welcoming everyone,” says P3 board member Alexis Mansanarez. “We are open to all feedback, all points of view, all people–”
“—Not all points of view, not all people,” board member Aretha Basu interrupted.
“…on the progressive spectrum,” Mansanarez amended.
Armstrong anticipates “hard decisions in the future.” They say the board–which currently includes Armstrong, Costa, Parris, Basu, Mansanarez, failed District 3 candidate Efrain Hudnell, and community activist Aleksa Manila—will vote while considering input from community partners on how P3 spends the money.
In regards to Lewis and Moore specifically, Armstrong offers a quote from Maya Angelou: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
“There has to be room for education and growth, but we are tired of people playing presentational politics with people’s lives,” Armstrong says. “It’s time for progressive to mean something again in Seattle, and we hope to start that conversation collaboratively.”
Costa argues that the existence of P3 would encourage candidates to voice bolder ideas. Big business’ outsized influence can put some more hand-wringing candidates in a position to capitulate to power. Everyone’s afraid of an out-of-context quote making them out to be a Marxist on a mailer. The threat of how corporate IEs portrayed abolitionist candidates such as Nikkita Oliver and Nicole Thomas Kennedy in the 2021 elections chilled the conversation on reallocating police funding. Without equally powerful IEs, voters see much less counter-messaging. If voters get equal information about candidates, Costa believes most Seattleites will swing in favor of taxing the wealthy, standing up for workers, protecting renters, and striving for a cleaner earth.
The Task at Hand
As for this year’s progressive, it’s unclear how much IE spending Rinck will need to pull off a victory. She won more than 50 percent of the vote in the primary, and she will likely pick up the 8 percent of voters who supported the other lefty challengers in the race, Saunatina Sanchez and Tariq Yusuf. And those results came after the Washington Realtors PAC spent $60,000 on ads for Woo.
So far, the usual suspects who drummed up PACs for the mayor, the city attorney, and most of the current council have not launched a campaign around Woo this cycle. Last year, Friends of SE Seattle spent $168,000 to support Woo only for Council Member Tammy Morales to beat her anyway. Woo’s campaign and IE combined paid $28.86 per vote, whereas Morales and her IE paid $11.44.
There’s still time for those donors to get involved—Friends of SE Seattle did not register until Sept 27 of last year, and they did not drop any mailers until mid-October.
But even if Rinck doesn’t end up needing backup to fight corporate influence in her race, the win would help P3 establish itself for next time.
And there will be a next time, as big business feels entitled to City Hall. When Woo lost her race, corporate PAC wrangler Tim Ceis told his email list of donors to pressure the council to appoint Woo to the vacant citywide council seat she now occupies. Ceis wrote that their successful outside spending “earned [them] the right to let the Council know not to offer the left a consolation prize of this Council seat.” The council listened to Ceis and the donors. If P3 can pull off a successful outside spending campaign, then maybe they will “earn” some sway themselves. God knows showing up to council chambers to deliver public comment ain’t working.
The council is not “conservative,” they just are not far-left whack-jobs.
And “big business” didn’t buy the council; the voters of Seattle elected the council.
Truth hurts, doesn’t it Hannah? Good luck with your “revolution.”
“If voters get equal information about candidates, Costa believes most Seattleites will swing in favor of taxing the wealthy, standing up for workers, protecting renters, and striving for a cleaner earth.”
Very true. And also positions that many of the evil “conservatives” take.
The problem is the stuff that you leave out. Like “kill gifted and talented programs in schools!”. Or “The junkies are your unhoused neighbors and you should love having them live by you or camp at the school”. Etc… “Abolish the police! Buy junkies nice homes! When your stuff is stolen that’s just social justice.”.
That’s the crap that kills you in elections. That and derailing every policy based on the perfect being the enemy of the good, or running it through an equity focus when it’s stupid. Like whining that public car chargers aren’t equitably placed in neighborhoods where no one can afford an electric car.
“…Costa says Elliot Bay Neighbors “carpet-bombed” West Seattle with mailers that misinformed voters on her platform and stoked fear.”
Has anyone ever actually read a mailer?
Costa lost the race the day she held up a “yes” card in response to Shaun Scott’s question about defunding the police.
https://www.thestranger.com/elections-2023/2023/05/12/78988983/seattle-city-council-candidates-pick-sides-on-defunding-the-police-kinda
Every group that continues to dump money into leftie candidates is wasting time and money. The only way we’re going to fundamentally and durably change the face of the council is by moving these elections to even years, preferably presidential election years.
@3 in my opinion, the mailers definitely veered into fear mongering territory, but were based on Costa’s own words and actions. She unambiguously agreed with defunding the police in the event described in my link above. She should have realized that this was never going to allow her to win
This whole idea that the council was bought is insulting to the people of Seattle, who are many things, but they generally aren’t dumb. It’s right up there with trump claiming that the 2020 election was rigged.
Some of it was to be expected. There’s always a “throw the bums out” mentality after a huge upheaval like a global pandemic. But don’t you think you could maybe consider the fact that people were tired of the direction the city was taking?
If being a Progressive was so successful at advancing personal security and welfare, wouldn’t Progressives, not conservatives, have the money to buy the Council?
What does that say about the utility of Progressive ideology in promoting personal security and welfare?
“For example, Lewis repealed laws against loitering in 2020 because they disproportionately punish people of color, queer people, and poor people.”
We need to repeal all laws that have such disproportionate impacts. For example, we should legalize murder because laws prohibiting murder have disproportionate impact.
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/tables/table-43
51% of those arrested for murder come from just 13.6% of the U.S. population.
So if disproportionate impact is the rational for repealing a law, then we should call the Legislature into session and start with that one, because its one of the most disproportionate, and keep the legislature in session until most laws are repealed, since most have disproportionate impact.
Lack of money isn’t what cost Progressives their majority on the City Council. It was primarily The Losers’ agenda of ‘Defund the Police,’ with a smattering of identity politics, overly-woke emphasis on so-called ‘lived experience,’ and a complete disregard for fiscal reality.
@6 Ms Vel-DuRay, isn’t that the rub though? The Stranger has time and again insinuated that the only reason voters have supported a number of things is because they have been influenced by bad people (either mysterious Trump supporters, landlords or big business) and are too dumb to know any better. Whether it was the pending repeal of the head tax, the Sawant recall, the election of Ann Davison and now the city council, its just all evidence that the people of Seattle need to be told what to do by SECB because they’ll fall for any old mailer that comes with the val-u-pak of coupons. I look forward to this effort and what excuse TS will come up with next when the voters once again reject awesome candidates like Nikkita Oliver, NTK or Christianna Obermeyer despite the Progressive war chest.
Were there more than 2 people there?
Ranked choice voting can’t get here fast enough. Yeah, some big spending certainly plays, but with our top two choice elections, voters naturally get polarized and the results are ghastly. Nobody wanted to choose between Alex Pederson or Shaun Scott in D4, or the 2023 version of that race in the same district. Here’s hoping RCV will blunt the corporate spending in the primaries and let voters take a chance in someone in the middle.
@3 Per the Stranger’s coverage, “mailers have ‘zero” influence’ in general elections.”
https://www.thestranger.com/elections-2023/2023/09/21/79175822/how-local-political-consultants-make-their-money
The feelings around the public’s new obsequiousness to order come from the squares and nobs reaction to the chaotic scenes on their phone regarding the well intentioned Temporary Autonomous Zone blocking off a few streets downtown.
Freaked out the usual suspects.
@14 but not you because you’re so very cool
zenhighwayman, it’s wasn’t restricted to downtown or Capitol Hill (which are two different areas of town, dear). Woodland Park was overrun, as was the Ballard Commons. My neighborhood (North Beacon Hill) observed a spate of arsons. Aurora Avenue above Evergreen Washalli became an open-air prostitution market. There were few parts of town that didn’t feel the effect of the societal strain that resulted from Covid and the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd.
“Everyone’s afraid of an out-of-context quote making them out to be a Marxist on a mailer.”
Again with the mailers (thanks, @13), and just really really rich, after the Stranger spent ten consecutive years hectoring the Council to do every last thing their lone Marxist member told them to do.
“The threat of how corporate IEs portrayed abolitionist candidates such as Nikkita Oliver and Nicole Thomas Kennedy in the 2021 elections chilled the conversation on reallocating police funding.”
In 2020, the Council had allowed Seattle’s screaming activist class to hijack police reform with “defund,” which lost most voters right there.
Note how the Stranger no longer uses “defund,” or tries to use it as an attack on Tanya Woo? The only thing the Stranger has learned is to avoid rhetoric it has itself made toxic. Other than that, they’ll just continue to hype the same failed candidates, to push the same failed policies.
History said it about the last Kings of France, and it applies to the Stranger in Seattle now: “They never learned anything, they never forgot anything, and they always assumed everything they wanted was right and good, simply by virtue of their wanting it.”
@17 to be fair the repackaging seems to be working with Rinck. She espouses many of the same polices their previous candidates did (housing first, harm reduction, alternatives to policing, high taxation, no accountability for non profits) and is seemingly well on her way to winning not only a seat on the council but a city wide election. She has been very demure about her policies and has been using overly vague, fluffy language. We’ll see if it holds come election night but if it does you can be sure that will be the playbook for in 2025 for Nelson’s seat and the city attorney position.
Seattle’s Justice System: A Fortress for the Wealthy, A Graveyard for Small Business
For over six years, we’ve poured our hearts, souls, and every last dollar into building a small business in downtown Seattle. But what we’ve discovered, through relentless adversity and betrayal, is that Seattle’s justice system isn’t designed for people like us. It’s rigged—shielding the wealthy and corporate titans while crushing the dreams of small businesses beneath its weight. Our story is just one thread in the larger tapestry of a city that prides itself on diversity and progress, but in reality, is drowning in the contradictions of its own narratives.
It all began in 2022, while working for a media company. We were hired by a third party who introduced us to a seemingly promising local maker—someone who, with a smile, took advantage of our goodwill and resources. This individual exploited us for 20 custom hats, moved a piano for free, and walked away with $15,000 worth of promotion on social media—all with no intention of ever investing a dime. He was charmed by the results, of course, but his real talent lay in using others to elevate himself. And then he introduced us to someone even more insidious: a man tied to a billion-dollar car family in Seattle, with a mansion on Mercer Island, who used our professional relationship to mask his double life. While we believed we were building a business partnership, he saw us as a pawn in his elaborate scheme—a distraction while he maintained his adultery in a luxury downtown apartment. When we finally set a boundary, the relationship turned venomous, spiraling into a brutal legal battle that has dragged on for three years. His wealth fueled his ability to manipulate the legal system, and we found ourselves battered, not just by lawsuits, but by the ruthless nature of Seattle’s so-called “justice.”
But that was just the beginning. Next came the Bellevue Plaza debacle—a supposed beacon of opportunity, where promises of investment turned into a nightmare of delays, lies, and deceit. We were told to prepare for a winter 2022 opening, so we invested nearly $100,000 into fixtures, inventory, and resources to bring our dream to life. But every meeting led to more delays. And when we finally confronted the owner of the investment group, we were met with hostility and gaslighting. He denied ever telling us to prepare or invest—yet emails prove otherwise. We were abandoned, humiliated, and left holding the bag, once again victims of those with power and influence who seem to be immune from accountability.
Then, as if the universe hadn’t tested us enough, we were targeted by a corporate giant in downtown Seattle. After being robbed by their own maintenance staff, we sought justice—only to face retaliation. Instead of addressing the theft, they unleashed their legal hounds, weaving false narratives and using every trick in the book to tarnish our reputation and evict us from our store. This wasn’t just a legal eviction—it was a corporate attack designed to silence us, to erase our presence from downtown Seattle. And in true corporate fashion, they monitored our social media, weaponized the legal system, and pushed us out, as if we never mattered in the first place.
The common thread in all of these experiences? The wealthy and corporate elite wielding their power to silence, to suppress, and to suffocate the voices of small business owners like us. The Seattle justice system is their accomplice, complicit in protecting their interests while small businesses are left to fend for themselves. We’ve been denied legal counsel, turned away by justice programs that claim we don’t fit their criteria, and left wondering where these so-called “small business resources” are really going. While organizations claim to support local entrepreneurs, we’ve seen little more than empty promises and a sea of denial letters, all while they invite us to galas and ask for donations to prop up their polished, feel-good image.
The reality is, small businesses in Seattle are being erased. Corporate stores close their doors, leaving downtown empty, while we’re financially crippled by a system that favors wealth over truth. We’ve fought for years, investing every last cent into our business, and yet, when we needed protection, Seattle’s justice system turned its back on us. Programs that should support struggling business owners like us are nowhere to be found. It’s become clear that the vibrant, local Seattle we see celebrated on social media is nothing but a facade.
Seattle, where is your justice? Where is your community? In a city that claims to value progress, diversity, and small businesses, we are left asking: Why have we been abandoned? We’ve given everything we have, and still, we are silenced. The real story is this: Seattle’s justice system protects those with money, while the rest of us—those who built this city from the ground up—are left to suffer, forgotten and erased. The fight isn’t just for our business anymore—it’s for the soul of Seattle itself. Will you listen? Will you act? Or will you continue to let the powerful write the narrative while we disappear?