This summer, during the heat of the primary campaign season, Seattle City Council member Bruce Harrell took me to the Rainier Community Center to watch an intramural basketball game. He shook hands, gave hugs, and asked people about their kids. “I will guarantee you,” he told me emphatically, “when my opponents walk in here, no one will know who they are. So don’t tell me I’m out of touch with my community. They are out of touch with my community.”
At the time, Harrell—a former lawyer and two-term city council member who considers himself a swing vote on the council—was up against two challengers. With Seattle’s switch to district elections, the race was focused sharply on who could prove the deepest connection to South Seattle and the International District, now known as District 2.
Harrell made it through the primary election easily, winning almost 62 percent of the vote and narrowing his competition to one challenger: food policy consultant Tammy Morales. Given the advantages of incumbency, his strong primary showing, and the fact that Harrell had out-fundraised Morales three to one, conventional wisdom said the race was over before it began…
