Since May, Mayor Bruce Harrell has deployed attack ads, hitched his wagon to a progressive tax proposal, and shouted at the The Stranger’s endorsement board, but so far, it seems like it’s too little too late: a new poll from the Northwest Progressive Institute found that Harrell and Katie Wilson are still neck and neck in this race.
The poll, based on interviews with 651 likely primary voters, found that when voters were given the information in the King County Voters Pamphlet, 35 percent said they would vote for Wilson, compared to 33 percent that said they would vote for Harrell. When they simulated a general election with the two candidates, 43 percent went for Wilson, and only 39 percent for Harrell.
The margin of error for this poll is 4.1 percent, so statistically, the two candidates are tied.
What might be more important, though, is where each candidate has room to grow. Andrew Villeneuve, the executive director of NPI, sees Harrell’s incumbency as a disadvantage in this election. Seattle is always looking for fresh blood (we haven’t reelected a mayor since Greg Nichols in 2005), and this year is no different. Harrell’s approval rating is 35 percent, but his disapproval rating is a whopping 44 percent. Wilson’s disapproval rating is only 18 percent, and 48 percent of the respondents didn’t have an opinion on her, which means she has so much more room to win over voters in the general election.
Typically an incumbent would hope to be close to 50 percent at this point in the race, Villeneuve said in a press conference Monday morning. “[Harrell] is in a race for his political life,” Villeneuve said. “This is one of the most exciting mayoral races I’ve ever seen.”
Harrell’s campaign has clearly noticed how tight the race is, and they’re starting to go negative. A press release from the campaign two weeks ago claimed that Wilson was “flip flopped” because she declined to endorse Kshama Sawant’s run for Congress, and claimed she was trying to “mislead Seattle voters and make her extreme views palatable to the general public.” And last week, they sent out a mailer that went after her previous endorsements of Sawant and her support for plans to cut police budgets. And while, thanks to the Democracy Voucher Programs spending limits, they’re tied in fundraising, the pro-Harrell PAC’s fundraising has already passed $275,000.
Wilson has campaigned with a huge focus on affordability: of rent, childcare, and a slice of pizza. The Stranger asked NPI’s Villeneuve if the results showed that her affordability-focused messaging was resonating with voters. “Yes, focusing on affordability has definitely helped Katie,” he said. He noted that a handful of voters mentioned affordability as one of the central reasons they would vote for her, “but campaigning on lowering Seattleites’ costs is not the only reason why she’s competing well right now. Wilson’s supporters say she brings good political instincts to the table and has a track record of getting results.”
Villeneuve pointed to one person who was surveyed—a Black woman between 39 and 49 years old with a graduate degree who lives in Georgetown—as a good example of Wilson’s appeal. “Katie has worked with so many community partners and leaders,” she wrote. “She is a critical thinker and she is able [to] make a plan and mitigate harm. She is trustworthy because her actions and words match. She understands the challenges the city has and the opportunities to utilize existing resources to help communities and she is thoughtful about progressive revenue. She applies a racial equity lens and she is a strong advocate for renters, anti-displacement, inclusive zoning, [good] jobs and reliable transportation. She knows these investments lead to real public safety… She won’t lead with hostility and that tone will improve jobs for city staff.”
When reached for comment, the Harrell campaign pointed to “tariff-driven inflation impacting household budgets” as one of his headwinds in the campaign, and emphasized the same notes that are in his negative mailers: Wilson’s previous endorsement of Sawant, her support for cutting police budgets, and her opposition to sweeps. “We knew this would be a challenging race,” Harrell said.
Wilson took an understated victory lap. “This poll shows what I and our hundreds of campaign volunteers already know from talking with voters across the city: so many people are ready for change,” Wilson told The Stranger. “They know we can’t afford another four years of visionless leadership that puts wealthy interests ahead of everyday working people.”
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include comment from the Harrell Campaign.
“She applies a racial equity lens”
Yeah, she evaluates everyone on the color of their skin. And if you’re white and make more, or have more, than what “you deserve” you’re screwed.
This isn’t the general election season, it’s the primary. Harrell and Wilson will likely take the top two places in the primary, and so advance to the general. The voters’ choice isn’t just between these two candidates at this point, and the Stranger should stop pretending it is.
(Also, a sample size of 651 persons is too small.)
Remember, the goal is to win the general (too often SECB seems to forget this reality – see Ann Davidson’s win over TS candidate NTK, no way does she win against Holmes). Katie is obviously a policy wonk but the only way the Mayor of Seattle can make things more affordable is to cut minimum wage, taxes, bureaucracy – something I doubt any Seattle politician will do (the term political suicide comes to mind).
Eventually SECB will realize that a municipality cannot solve its pet issues – these need to be addressed (ideally) at the federal level, worst case state level.
Katie Wilson is a Kshama Sawant supporter. We need to move on past that type of divisive governing. Harrell deserves a second term to continue to bring Seattle together.
“The poll, based on interviews with 651 likely primary voters, found that when voters were given the information in the King County Voters Pamphlet,”
That’s just it, most voters don’t read the voters pamphlet. They just vote based on the whatever information came at them on a TV commercial, radio ad, newscast, or talk radio show.
The low-information voter is alive and well.
IAgree that incumbents are facing an uphill battle these days, but in our year of 2025, many are also looking forward to stability. Mayor is a big office, but big changes of policy are ultimately in the hands of City Council.
I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see Wilson come out on top in the primary. It will be a low turnout affair and we know progressives are really good at ballot harvesting. Remember Oliver and NTK were both ahead after the primary in 2021 for the same reason. I’m sure if Wilson wins TS will have a ticker tape parade and start making firm plans but we’ll see what happens in the general once people really start digging into Wilson’s policy positions.
@3 “see Ann Davidson’s win over TS candidate NTK, no way does she win against Holmes”
Why would you think the person who came in last in the primary would have been unbeatable in the general? Holmes’ fate was sealed when the Times endorsed Davison, not him, in the primary.
@8: ” Holmes’ fate was sealed when the Times endorsed Davison, not him, in the primary.”
That’s not what the Stranger thought at all:
“That said, her [Davison’s] mildly respectable showings in the 2020 Washington lieutenant gubernatorial election (she got 285,597 votes!) and in the 2019 Seattle City Council election make us think she could take second in this race if she got a last-minute injection of cash or a Seattle Times endorsement. Davison’s current fundraising numbers don’t support this fear, but we’re not taking any chances.” (Note: “could” appeared in italics in the original. https://www.thestranger.com/news/2021/07/14/59065522/the-strangers-endorsements-for-the-august-3-2021-primary-election)
So, the Stranger’s political geniuses came up with a way to ice Davison out of the general election:
“While we’re not 100% sure it’s time for a change at this particular helm, we know we at least want Thomas-Kennedy to make it through the primary so we can find out more.”
If Holmes’ fate was indeed “sealed” by anything other than his chronically allowing campers to do whatever they wanted without fear of prosecution, it was by the Stranger’s endorsement of NTK.
@9 let me guess, you also think Sawant was to blame somehow
I’m no fan of Sawant, having defended her through the MAGA-infested recall attempt only to see her turn around and campaign for Trump’s stalking-horse in a crucial swing state. I’ll never support her for anything ever again. But repeatedly invoking her as a cudgel against Wilson reeks of desperation and reveals him as a petty and unserious person. It’s probably reason enough alone for voters to choose someone else.
@11 “MAGA infested” lol…please do tell us where all these secret MAGAs live in Seattle. Sawant only won her recall by literally printing ballots on the street corner and getting anyone to fill one out. She would of handily lost the next election which is why she dropped out.
NTK is the equivalent of Joe Kent – a candidate so bad that the electorate did the unthinkable, put someone of the opposing party into the seat.
So yes @8, I think we’re going to see that anyone other than a complete nut job ideologue can easily beat AD (I suspect she’ll come in 3rd or 4th). I think the only way that doesn’t happen is if one of the candidates cracks 50% (thus allowing AD to skate by in the high teens).
And for those who 2021 is ancient history, here’s a good rundown of the details – https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Seattle_City_Attorney_election
It was a three person race (which means 3rd place was last place).
@13 “NTK is the equivalent of Joe Kent – a candidate so bad that the electorate did the unthinkable, put someone of the opposing party into the seat”
No. The Seattle Times and the electorate chose Davison over Holmes as well. The sad fact of the matter is the Times and electorate actively wanted a law & order Republican for City Attorney. Their hands weren’t forced, they made a choice.
@11 You don’t remember? A Sawant campaign mailer identified several dozen people from public records who had contributed both to the recall and to Trump. As I’ve said before, I think the recall would have succeeded if its leadership had responded to this mailer by calling a press conference to publicly renounce those supporters and pledge to return their donations. The final vote was close and the positive publicity from such a move would likely have put the recall over. But they wouldn’t do it, which suggests to me that the far-right ideological strain within that campaign ran even deeper than Sawant’s receipts could prove.
@15 clearly you think AD is a stronger candidate than I (I’m confident she was a snowflake in July) – but I guess we’ll see.
@16 A Sawant mailer you say? Oh I didn’t realize it came from the mouth of the prophet herself. Regardless of who donated to it the campaign itself was driven by residents of D3 who were rightfully fed up with Sawant and her disdain of anyone/thing that wasn’t in complete alignment with her cause. Anyone who thought this was right wing or racist was already going to vote against the recall anyway.
@18 Sorry to belabor the (off-topic) subject, but Sawant named names, and the response from the recall campaign was silence. Big mistake. Sure, most people’s minds were already made up but in any election, no matter how polarized, there is always at least a handful of persuadable voters, who in this case could easily have tipped the result if only they’d been credibly assured that Sawant’s omnipresent campaign slogan “Stop the racist right-wing recall” was just empty hyperbole. A high-visibility press conference featuring a multiracial group of local luminaries with center-left cred (which the recall campaign did have) would very likely have accomplished that. Sure, the Stranger would’ve dismissed it as too little too late, but the ST and other big media would’ve made it the talk of the town.
Since Sawant only won by about 300 votes, it’s very hard to escape the conclusion that the recall blew a winnable election because it couldn’t bring itself to renounce the small number of identified Trump supporters in its midst. The actual merits (or lack thereof) of recalling Sawant are kind of irrelevant now.
“There’s a strong argument for simply disbanding police departments and starting over: Institutional culture change is hard. Defunding the police, therefore, also means redirecting those funds (and likely more) to other workers and other purposes — unwelcome news for anyone hoping that cop cuts might help with the massive revenue shortfalls cities are currently facing. But it’s the work that needs to be done. Can Seattle do all this? Can America do all this? There’s never been a better time to try.”
@16: Someone actually read a mailer?!? Good god, why?
@19: ‘…there is always at least a handful of persuadable voters, who in this case could easily have tipped the result if only they’d been credibly assured that Sawant’s omnipresent campaign slogan “Stop the racist right-wing recall” was just empty hyperbole.’
As @18 had just reminded everyone, any voter in D3 who was actually willing to entertain the belief a “racist and right-wing” campaign had been established by other voters in D3 would not have been persuaded by your proposed dog-and-pony show of Extreme Purity. Catering to Sawant’s polarizingly divisive demands for Complete Purity In All Things was not the way to defeat it, and allowing her to bully them into reaction against her most outright and obvious lies would merely have sent the message they feared even her most outright and obvious lies.
The big mistake the Recall Sawant campaign did make came when they failed to challenge Sawant’s harvested ballots. Desperately clinging to power, Sawant would easily have consigned any number of her campaign’s staff and “volunteers” (some of whom seem to have been flown in by Socialist Alternative) to felony convictions, if that’s what it took to stop her humiliating recall.
@20 “Dark history?” By acknowledging that institutional change, while desirable, is neither easy nor cheap, Wilson comes across in this quote as possessing the right balance of idealism and pragmatism to be an effective and compassionate leader. Although the zeitgeist moment for seriously considering a radically different public safety paradigm seems to have passed (for now), it was and is an important societal question to raise. She has my vote.
@21 The question I was asked is why I described the recall campaign (in passing, mind you) as “MAGA-infested” and I reminded them that Sawant provided hard proof that it was. I agree that her dogmatic, inflexible approach to politics is annoying, but in this case she had her opponents dead to rights and the politically savvy response was to swallow their pride and make a big, splashy, media-friendly show of purging their ranks. Instead they sat back and let Sawant run wild with “Stop the racist recall” which may not have changed many minds but surely dissuaded some would-be voters from casting a ballot against her. (And the only reason they didn’t sue over her ballot operation is that it simply wasn’t illegal, as even the Sawant-despising Seattle Times grudgingly admitted in an editorial that called for changing the law.)
@23: “The question I was asked is why I described the recall campaign (in passing, mind you) as “MAGA-infested” and I reminded them that Sawant provided hard proof that it was.”
And that “hard proof” was Sawant’s claim (did you check it?) that “several dozen people” had contributed to both Trump and to her Recall. Let’s read that again: of all the donors to Recall Sawant, there were “several dozen” Trump supporters. That’s proof of just how overwhelmingly liberal the Recall Sawant base really was, but you fell for Sawant’s obsession with Purity Politics at its worst. Thousands of citizens in D3 voted to recall her, but they don’t count because of “several dozen” Trump supporters? Really? So much for the value of diversity!
“I agree that her dogmatic, inflexible approach to politics is annoying,”
It’s actually the root of the problems she caused. No compromise, no building of coalitions, just endless demands that everyone do what she told them to do. And when she encountered the inevitable strong opposition her “my way or the highway” approach provoked, she responded by, say, leading a vandalizing mob to the family home of a political opponent. That was a per se abuse of her power, and she was almost recalled for it.
‘Instead they sat back and let Sawant run wild with “Stop the racist recall”…’
It was a flat-out lie. Did you denounce it as such? Because you keep repeating it.
“…they didn’t sue over her ballot operation is that it simply wasn’t illegal…”
I didn’t say they should have “sued,” I said they should have challenged those harvested ballots, and in every case where the voter could not be found, that harvested ballot would have been disqualified. Do that successfully 350 times, and she’s Recalled.
“…purging their ranks.”
That a citizen of a democracy actually demanded “purging,” shows that maybe this country does indeed deserve Trump.
@24 No, I didn’t check the Sawant campaign’s research but surely the recall campaign did, and if they found any mistakes they didn’t publicize them, so I think it’s safe to assume her info was correct. I believe I’ve already addressed sufficiently most of what you wrote so I’ll stand by my past comments now and just add this: As a practical matter I don’t see how the recall campaign could have identified “harvested” ballots to mount a focused challenge to them. The only way to do it would be to challenge every voter in the district who registered during the campaign period (including the ones they themselves were responsible for), which would be both extremely expensive and terrible PR. And almost surely futile, since fraudulent voter registration is a serious crime that (contrary to MAGA-world fantasy) very few people are inclined to commit in real life.
@22: Wow, did you miss the point. Wilson’s supporters here at the Stranger now do everything they can to deny she fully supported “defund,” and there, in her own words, we read her complete support for it. Hence the “dark history” nym.
@25: “No, I didn’t check the Sawant campaign’s research but surely the recall campaign did,”
Why do you assume that? They had plenty to do without also trying to respond to one mailer.
“…I think it’s safe to assume her info was correct.”
So, do you also believe District 3 in Seattle hosted a “racist, right-wing recall”? Because she said that, too.
As for the rest, you obviously know nothing about how the ballot-challenge process works. While you educate yourself on that (https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/administrators/forms-templates/voter-registration-challenges), consider that a ballot, once challenged, must be defended. If the alleged voter does not show up in person to defend it, the ballot can be disqualified.
“The only way to do it would be to challenge every voter in the district who registered during the campaign period,”
No, it would be to check the registrations made in D3 Seattle in December of that year. It was a special election, and a flurry of sudden registrations near the end of it would reveal the ballot-harvesting efforts. Challenge several hundred of those, and the chances are good Recall Sawant would have won the election.
@26 Yes, I know Wilson supported the defund movement. Although I personally never went quite that far, I understood and agreed with the impetus behind it. American criminal justice is structurally racist, classist and ableist, and the period of serious reflection and re-evaluation it underwent in 2020, however short-lived it proved to be, was necessary and appropriate. She has my vote.
Anyway: According to the state government link you provided, one first has to select from a list of specific reasons for challenging a ballot (I suppose the relevant choice in this case is “does not reside at the address listed on their voter registration”), and then sign a sworn statement under penalty of perjury that one has “personal knowledge” of the challenged voter’s ineligibility. In other words, you can’t just speculate about someone. You have to KNOW they’re lying. Even if it’s true that some people who encountered the Sawant operation filed completely fake registrations (which they couldn’t very easily have used to vote anyway, without a valid address to send the ballot to), how on earth could the state’s system be used for the sort of high-volume purge you envision? It seems deliberately designed to thwart such efforts.
@27: If you knew the quote showed Wilson’s support for “defund,” then why did you pretend otherwise @22? This topic of discussion began with the Stranger’s (foolish) denial Wilson had supported “defund.” But she had, and she persisted in supporting “defund” even after voters had rejected it.
“… which they couldn’t very easily have used to vote anyway, without a valid address to send the ballot to…”
You really don’t know what “ballot harvesting” means, do you?
@28 “If you knew the quote showed Wilson’s support for “defund,” then why did you pretend otherwise?”
I wasn’t pretending anything, I was expressing my own thoughts on the subject and why it’s perfectly plausible to vote for someone who supported the idea without being entirely in agreement with it. I may have been goaded to respond by the phrase “dark history” whose unfortunate racial implications I shouldn’t have to point out.
“You really don’t know what “ballot harvesting” means, do you?”
Does anyone? It’s an imprecise, slangy, vaguely pejorative term popularized by Republicans that ~usually~ refers to the collection of multiple voters’ legitimate ballots for submission by one person or group, a tactic which is frowned upon in some places but is legal in WA. If you had serious reason to believe Sawant did something that veered into illegality, you should’ve reported it to the proper authorities. But I don’t think she did, and neither did the corporate media that would’ve eagerly jumped all over her if she had. Sure, a few people may have impulsively filled out “Mickey Mouse, 123 Sesame Street” registrations at her sidewalk kiosk, but election officials (none of whom were born yesterday) have multiple safeguards in place to catch those before they send out a ballot. I’m sorry, but the idea that there were 300+ people in a single council district who not only received ballots at fake or falsified addresses but feloniously used them to vote is MAGA-level wish-casting.
@29: “Does anyone? It’s an imprecise, slangy, vaguely pejorative term popularized by Republicans…”
Oh, OK: this and @27 are attempts at a dodge. Anyone who remembered Sawant’s mailer (!) from years ago would also remember her ballot-harvesting effort, and how it was the only thing that saved her.
All the Recall Sawant campaign had to do was show 300+ votes (out of thousands cast) had come from voters not registered in District 3. The last-minute spurt of registrations for harvested ballots would have shown which voters had (likely) registered during the ballot-harvesting effort. The Recall Sawant campaign could simply have sent each of these voters a postcard at the voter’s registered address, saying the voter’s registration might be challenged, and urging the voter to ensure proper registration at a valid address. If more than several hundred come back as NOT AT THIS ADDRESS, then Recall Sawant would start challenging them, having received written proof that a sufficient number of voters were not registered at their claimed addresses. That’s all. No charges of criminality, no vast conspiracy, just the knowledge that the extreme desperation which drove Sawant’s vote-harvesting effort would have resulted in numerous errors, and possibly outright fraud as well (although that latter would be an issue for the authorities).
Also, you’re free to give examples of anyone, anywhere, ever, using the phrase “dark history” as a racial slur. (Bonus points if the reference happened in this millennium.)
@30 If you contact King County Elections with your suspicions, chances are you’ll find someone willing to explain to you in granular detail how they ensured that a person who lives outside of District 3 did not receive a ballot in the recall election — or, if a ballot or two did slip through the cracks, why it almost certainly didn’t end up being counted. The idea that 300 ballots in a tiny council district election got past all their fail-safes (and they have a lot of them) is ridiculous. I’ve worked for KCE on a seasonal basis in the past, and while I have my issues with their temp-hiring practices I can confidently tell you they’re extremely good at their one mission: conducting nonpartisan and accurate elections. Officials in many other vote-by-mail jurisdictions consider King County the gold standard for how to do it right. (And are you serious that you’ve never heard “dark” used as a racially disparaging way, such as with a “y” at the end? You must be either very young or very sheltered.) Enjoy the weekend.
@31: Adding bitter memories from your time as a temp at KCRE really doesn’t bolster your repeated claim of not knowing what “ballot harvesting” means. You know perfectly well that Sawant’s campaign handed out ballots on the street, and then registered voters to match those ballots on the spot. Desperate to harvest enough votes to stave off her recall, the Sawant campaign would not have asked any questions. Challenging those registrations should have been a priority for the Recall Sawant campaign. (It certainly would have been a far better use of their time and energy than conducting a “purge,” in a vain attempt to get Sawant to stop lying.)
‘And are you serious that you’ve never heard “dark” used as a racially disparaging way, such as with a “y” at the end?’
Ha, ha, ha. Nice try. When talking international politics, do you angrily denounce use of obscenity, every time someone says the word, ‘CoUNTry’?
“Enjoy the weekend.”
Thanks for the laughs.
@20 You are massively missing the point of (or misrepresenting) Wilson’s comment. As a former police administrator, the best thing Seattle could do it it could wave a magic wand would be to create a post-SPOG public safety department by disbanding and replacing the poorly led MAGAT ridden SPD to start over from scratch – as, for example, Camden, NJ did. That is not at all about abolishing police (Camden has sworn officers on the beat as we speak) but rather sweeping away the cruft and grift in order to rehire the officers we want and re-staff for maximum efficiency and effectiveness. (That includes civilianizing things non-sworn staff can do equally well or better for less than sworn officers, freeing the latter up to focus on proactive police work).
In this Wilson is far ahead of Harrell, who behaves as if he is a pawn of SPOG and lags the professional and practical efforts of peer departments such as San Jose, Denver, and Bellevue.
Wilson’s public safety platform is good for taxpayers and bad for bad guys – can’t say the same for Harrell’s, which is mostly good for padding SPOGATs pockets at we Seattle citizens’ expense.
@33: While you’re entitled to your own personal interpretation of Wilson’s statement, and cleaning out SPD root and branch sounds like a good idea, you should probably consider the 2020 Progressive City Council made any talk of “defund” politically toxic for many years, including today. The devil you know beats the one(s) you don’t, and it will likely take years (if not an entire generation) before Seattle’s voters even tolerate talk of such sweeping police reform.
@34: It is not my personal interpretation interpretation. I personally told her what Camden did, and explained why from a professional police management perspective being able to do the same here would be good for taxpayers, bad for bad guys, and fundamentally be of great service to those current and future Seattle officers who chose the job for the right reasons. We had a whole conversation about it. She understands the issues thoroughly and well, which is more than can be said for Harrell (or he does understand him and is visionless, lazy, or in the tank with SPOG, all of which are worse).
“The devil you know beats the one(s) you don’t, and it will likely take years (if not an entire generation) before Seattle’s voters even tolerate talk of such sweeping police reform.”
“Let’s start by being more like Bellevue” I think is an easy prescription to swallow, actually.
@35: It’s a long way from Camden, NJ to Bellevue. The former has a population of 70k and declining, while the latter has a population of just over twice that, at 151k. Seattle just passed 800k and continues to rise. Good luck getting anyone in Seattle to believe a/ anything sounding like “defund” remains worth trying, and b/ two small examples will scale up well.
@36 Yet getting better value for cost, putting the clamps down on bad guys what for, and freeing ourselves from SPOGat grifting doesn’t at all sound like “defund.” I suppose except when people somehow for inscrutable reasons insist that it does without cause and regardless of rhyme or reason.
@31 & 37
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@32 Strictly speaking, the Sawant campaign didn’t have to ask where a person lived (it’s certainly best-practice to do so, but not absolutely necessary). If the address a person used to register wasn’t in the district, their printed-out ballot wasn’t counted. KCE knows where the district boundaries are. If they used a fake name and/or address they made up on the spot, they broke the law AND their ballot wasn’t counted. If they used a sham address the Sawant campaign gave them, both the registrant AND the campaign broke the law, and their ballot wasn’t counted. Election officials everywhere are familiar with such ruses and can detect them. Again, I urge you to go down to Renton and take the self-guided tour to learn how the process actually works. You’ll come away knowing why it’s virtually certain that no unqualified ballots — zero, none — were counted in the recall. They know all the tricks and then some.
For whatever it’s worth now, I think the recall campaign’s biggest mistake (even bigger than its refusal to renounce the Trumpers in its midst) was its complete lack of a ground game. Sure, social media and direct mail are important (aerial banners less so), but in an off-year election in a geographically small area they don’t compensate for boots on the ground. For two solid months you couldn’t walk more than a block in Capitol Hill without encountering one or more Sawantistas. In all that time I never met a single recall campaign rep, either on the street or at a community event such as the farmer’s market (let alone knocking at my door, which the Sawant people did). Not one. Based on that observation alone, it was clear to me she was likely to survive.
So tired of coming here to only read bitter right-wingers spew their Sawant Derangement Syndrome (SDS) and where she obviously lives rent-free in their “heads” 24/7.
Let us know when you actually have something issues-based for the average person to support besides higher rents and champagne for your bedroom love-fest with developers and the real estate industry and to hell with everyone else except yourselves.
That’s why we have finally decided to go with Girmay over Claudia. After going around in circles with both of them, we finally did a little dive into their money and guess who is a darling of the real estate. That’s right …. Claudia. We have liked her and her track record on transit, especially, but at the end of the day, we think Girmay will be more likely to land on the side of the person who’s worried about how much their rents are going up.
Meanwhile Girmay also enjoys very strong union support and he is also backed by a Medicare For All group, and while we are single payer supporters who are very concerned about what is happening to healthcare under Trump.
On the city attorney race, we liked all 3 progressives (Evans, O’Sullivan, Rouse), and think it’s very important people turn out to show Davison the exit. We liked O’Sullivan and Rouse, and even preferred them on (not all, but) some issues, but we didn’t see much of an online campaign for either (which is really mind boggling in this day and age with some progressive candidates since it doesn’t cost anything) – and while Evans strikes us as vigorously fighting for the job. Then we further saw a local online poll that put O’Sullivan at about 4% and Rouse at about 2% with Evans having a significant 2 digit lead over both. Even totaled together, however, they are not beating Davison. So, the issue of how hard a person campaigns and fights for the job seems very important to us on that race — so, we are going with Evans because she’s a fighter, and those two apparently can’t be bothered much, and we think she could still close the gap with Davison and given a bigger turn-out for the general, and with things heating more after the primary is over, and assuming she keeps her more proactive I’m-not-going-to-just-sit-on-my-laurels attitude.
But it’s still up to voters who want a better tomorrow to at least fight hard enough to walk over to a drop box and vote in the primary. What’s wrong with some of you out there (if you’re even reading about the elections) that you – like candidates who can’t be bothered to even maintain a free twitter account (and that actually included Claudia Balducci, too) ? Do you think it’s just going to happen for everyone like manna from heaven?
You have to show up and vote. This is something those with SDS know how to do. So if you want them to keep raising your rents and beating your standard of living down to a pulp, and while you pay for their champagne orgies with the realtors, and worry about one household emergency putting you and your loved ones out on the street in another month or two – then stay home.
@40 I came to the same conclusion about Evans. Perhaps not as progressive as the other two (I especially like Rouse) but the most likely Davison challenger to win. It will still be an uphill battle, but she’s Lee Evans’s granddaughter so don’t underestimate her.
@39: Anything in there to prevent, say, a dozen registrations from listing the same one-bedroom apartment on Capitol Hill as the place of residence? Would that get caught automatically? If so, how?
That’s just one example. Voting is a right, not a privilege, and therefore our laws are rightly structured to prefer voting over disqualification. As you’ve noted, the requirements for challenging are high (as they should be) — in fact, they’re quite a bit higher than even you’ve described. Sawant’s campaign could easily have registered ineligible voters and had their votes counted, with little chance of detection. Given how contemptuously she’d lied about voters in District 3 being “racist and right-wing,” could we really expect her campaign to turn away an ineligible voter? They were absolutely desperate for every vote.
“For two solid months you couldn’t walk more than a block in Capitol Hill without encountering one or more Sawantistas.”
And yet, their campaign wound up desperate for every vote. How could they both be everywhere, and yet so close to losing? Here’s a hint:
During the 2019 election season, I ventured up from Belltown to my old neighborhood, near Broadway. I found a table of Sawant volunteers, reminding passers-by of the upcoming election, and offering to help them vote. One of these volunteers had time for a chat. I identified myself as a former resident, who had lived there for many years. I asked him if he lived in the neighborhood, and he said no. I asked him if he lived in District 3, and he said that he did. I asked for how long, and he said “a few weeks.” I asked for which neighborhood, and he replied, “Beacon Hill.” I explained there was no part of Beacon Hill in District 3, and he started to become angry. I wished him the best and continued on my way, wondering if any of her volunteers actually ever lived anywhere near Seattle — and if Socialist Alternative had paid for their travel expenses to Seattle.
@40: ‘So tired of coming here to only read bitter right-wingers spew their Sawant Derangement Syndrome (SDS) and where she obviously lives rent-free in their “heads” 24/7.’
So, you’re not coming here any more? 😉
But Sawant dead-enders, still singing the praises of her lies, and still marveling at the wonder that was her ‘volunteer’ crew, are always a-ok peachy-keen alright with you, then?
“Let us know when you actually have something issues-based for the average person to support besides higher rents and champagne for your bedroom love-fest with developers and the real estate industry and to hell with everyone else except yourselves.” –@40
“But Sawant dead-enders, still singing the praises of her lies, and still marveling at the wonder that was her ‘volunteer’ crew, are always a-ok peachy-keen alright with you, then?” –@41
“You have to show up and vote. This is something those [bitter right-wingers] with SDS [Sawant Derangement Syndrome] know how to do. So if you want them to keep raising your rents and beating your standard of living down to a pulp, and while you pay for their champagne orgies with the realtors, and worry about one household emergency putting you and your loved ones out on the street in another month or two – then stay home.” –@40
speaking of Champagne —
who Needs a Refil!?