Beautiful day for democracy: Today’s expected to be clear, sunny, and close to 80 degrees. The perfect weather to walk to your nearest ballot box. 

Today is Primary Election Day! So much on the ballot this year, including but not limited to: Governor, Attorney General, a bunch of state legislative seats, and a citywide Seattle City Council seat! If you’re overwhelmed by the options, we’ve got a handy cheat sheet for you. Wanna tell all your friends WHY you voted the way you voted? Then check out our full endorsements for the arguments. If you’ve waited until today to vote—like I have—it’s best to drop off your ballot at a drop box, since mail carriers collect mail from mailboxes at various times, and they might miss yours. So grab a friend by the hand and skip along to the nearest ballot box before 8 pm tonight. As of 7 am today, voter turnout clocked in at about 20%. Dismal! Hop to it! 

More Election Day news: The races for Commissioner of Public Lands and Insurance Commissioner feature a bunch of Democrats vying for the top spot. Without a clear front-runner for either post, Republicans could plausibly block Dems from the general election, according to polling from the Northwest Progressive Institute (NPI). In the survey for the Commissioner of Public Lands race, former Republican Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler captured 18% support and Republican Sue Kuehl Pedersen secured 12% support. No Democratic candidate put up double digits in that race. A similar situation has developed in the Insurance Commissioner’s race. Confused? Vote the way we tell you to! 

Speaking of voting: Today the city council will decide whether to put Initiative 137, which is a payroll tax on wealthy companies to fund social housing, on the November ballot. At the moment, no council members have submitted an alternative measure. If that reality holds, then the initiative will likely face voters in November, when it has the best chance of passing. 

The council will also vote on the SCORE jail contract, a pilot program with a squishy budget and many outstanding operational questions. Despite those unanswered questions, they’ll likely push it through to appease their big business backers who think you can jail the mental illness out of people. Council President Sara Nelson moved to limit public comment at the meeting to an hour, a decision that has gone over super-well in the past. If you want to share your thoughts, public comment registration opens at 1 pm, so sign up early online to secure your spot. A rally against the SCORE contract starts outside City Hall at 1 pm today.

Meanwhile, the City’s budget forecast continues to darken, according to the Seattle Times. With lower-than-expected commercial and sales tax revenue, Seattle must tack on an additional $7 million to its budget deficit, bringing the total to $260 million. 

Zookeepers prepared to strike! As a labor dispute at the Woodland Park Zoo rages on and workers teeter on the edge of a strike, union members have started to make preparations for the animals in the advent of a work stoppage. If the Joint Crafts Council (JCC) Coalition of Unions cannot reach an agreement with zoo management, the union’s 200 members plan to scale down to a skeleton crew that can care for animals but not service the public. Zoo workers say that high turnover and low morale caused conditions at the zoo to worsen. The union wants “fair wages and benefits,” or else it will take direct action, including a possible strike.

ICYMI: My latest Bad Apples column dropped Monday. As I predicted in the column, KOMO reported that Officer Daniel Auderer filed a $20 million claim against the City over his firing. 

Uh, maybe Twitter is real life? Vice President Kamala Harris chose Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota as her running mate, according to the Associated Press. A former teacher, football coach, union member, and member of the National Guard, Walz seems cool. Trump called him “Dangerously Liberal,” which we love. Oh also, Harris won the Democratic nomination Monday night. She plans to officially introduce Walz as her Veep at a rally in Pennsylvania this evening, which has to be awkward considering Harris had also come close to choosing Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as her running mate. 

They’re gonna win: 

Debby weakens from hurricane to tropical storm: The storm front crawled slowly through the Southeast coast, leaving at least five dead and causing heavy rains and flooding in some areas, according to CNN.

National uprising in Bangladesh: Student protests in Bangladesh caused the prime minister to resign and flee the country Monday, according to Al Jazeera. Now the key organizers of the protest want Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus to lead the interim government.

Stuff still bad with the markets: Speculation continues about whether the US might be heading toward a recession. The US created fewer jobs than expected in July, unemployment rose, and the Federal Reserve continues to vote against cutting interest rates, according to the BBC. The “good(-ish) news”? BBC American economist Claudia Sahm said we aren’t currently in a recession. Yay!

I’ll Call U Back: My friend Kevin just made a playlist called “Real Hot Girl Shit.” He put this on there. I like this. 

 

Ashley Nerbovig is a staff writer at The Stranger covering policing, incarceration and courts. She is like other girls.

18 replies on “Slog AM: You Have Until 8 pm to Vote, Woodland Park Zookeepers Prepare for Strike, Kamala Harris Picks Tim Walz as VP”

  2. 20% voter turnout is worse than dismal.

    It’s outright pathetic and showcases how lazy the voters are.

    Life takes some effort folks. If you choose not to participate, don’t bitch about things.

  3. Walz seems fine. He was a high school teacher and a football coach, and looks comfortable in both a decent-but-not-designer suit and Carhartts. He has good ratings from the ACLU and Planned Parenthood. Not to mentioned he pioneered recent use of the “Trump/Vance are weird” memes.

  6. @7 people of twitter also called a bunch of other folks who weren’t picked (sort of an infinite monkey theorem but with folks who support tech racists/fascists)

  8. Walz seems great and I’m happy to have been proven wrong in my assumption that it was gonna be Shapiro based on the location of the announcement (admittedly, I thought it was gonna be sort of a big “reveal” done at a Philadelphian campaign rally. Had they announced in that fashion, I think having it not be the local boy would’ve been a pretty big and anti-climatic letdown among the crowd.)

    I also still kinda liked Kelly as he’s got the more physically imposing presence not just in person, but also on paper, with his marines and NASA background. It’s so incredibly sad and stupid that I’m now thinking these superficialities are somehow important, but I really think Trump enjoyed at least some benefit to bullying both Hillary and Joe. Walz has an army background though and so is no slouch on that front. I really hope once dumbass is dead and permanently out of our lives politics will see a return to whatever relative “normalcy” was before that, though I’ve no idea if that’s even remotely plausible and it’s a weird ass time to reflect nostalgically for to be sure.

  9. It’s so pleasant to be here before any of the RWNJs spewed their drivel. I’m pleasantly shocked by the announcement. When the short list was first announced, I had thought Walz was only on the list to appease the progressive wing of the party. When it was down to him and Shapiro, I expected that since she had been seen as more liberal than Biden on Gaza, that she’d follow the recent Democratic trend of picking a more conservative VP. Especially with Republicans for Harris in the news. I’m glad she recognized that they will get the moderate Republicans to vote for her, and Walz can help appeal the the much needed younger voters.

  10. @4

    Isn’t Portland, OR fond of the “Keep Portland Weird” concept?

    “Weird” appears to be yet another word (like “soul”) that is nebulous and prone to cherry picking.

  11. Anybody who looks at a GOP press release saying “Walz is dangerously liberal” and can’t see at a glance that the name Walz was filled, mad-lib style, into that sentence the second he was announced hasn’t been paying attention.

  12. @11 Oh, sure some people/places revel in their weirdness. I like being weird, but then I’m willing to poke fun at myself. Trump and Vance cannot stand being called weird because they’re bullies and there’s nothing worse for a bully than being the butt of a joke.

  14. Yeah, it’s not even remotely difficult to distinguish between the relatively dumb/benign Portland weird embodied by the bagpipe playing unicyclist who dresses up like Darth Vader in a kilt…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnVjkE87FDY

    …and that of Trump/Vance who argue for pornography bans and repeatedly bring up Hannibal Lecter as some sort of strange symbol of virtue or something. Walz’s line of attack has been popular and effective and he deserves kudos for spearheading it. Barry Petchesky had a great write-up on it last week.

    https://defector.com/look-at-these-fucking-weirdos

  15. “A former teacher [yadda yadda yadda] seems cool. Trump called him “Dangerously Liberal,” which we love.” Suck up much lately, Ashley? The guy you wrote about was just VP’d by the colonialist-warhorse-CEO-venture capitalist choice for DNC presidential nominee. How “cool.” But then, the staff at TS are now under a new mandate from their new owner to “hold the Left accountable” – hyping wretched candidates and shaming commonsensical citizens into voting for them is always how centrists “hold the Left accountable,” isn’t it? TS should bring back right-wing misogynist, conspiracy-theory peddling, pro-colonialist, anti-democracy humor columnist Dan Savage as it’s editor-in-chief.

  16. Walz feels a little Tim Kaine 2.0 to me, but with more baggage as he gives the GOP an opening paint the ticket with the George Floyd protests and the defund movement again which has been electorally damaging to Dems in the past. I think he probably helps in WI and MI, but PA is a must win regardless and I don’t think he’s going to have much cachet there. If anything PA might feel a little snubbed now since so many assumed Shapiro would get it.

  17. Yes, if Tim Walz has shown us anything in his first 15 minutes of fame it’s his complete lack of gregariousness. Shapiro never stood a chance.

  18. speaking of hating

    all things Progresssive

    some comments on nyt’s:

    Why Tim Walz

    Will Be a Potent

    Weapon for Kamala Harris

    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/06/opinion/tim-walz-kamala-harris.html

    He’s not a real estate developer, a corporate CEO, a hedge fund manager, a venture capitalist, a tech bro, not even a lawyer. What a relief!

    Hopefully, this signals a new era of Democrats doing stuff for people who aren’t obscenely rich and don’t really want to be. Yes, most Americans just want a middle class standard of living for their work and time with their families.

    I hope this VP choice is Kamala Harris telling us what she wants for us too.

    –anniedooley; Georgia

    Watching Walz’s speech I felt like I was watching Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. He is unmistakably genuine in his love of this country and his resume reads like a super patriot.

    Walz is everything Trump and Vance are not. He is optimistic, honest, sincere, humble, kind, caring, and inspiring. And he has the chops to take them on.

    I cannot wait to vote for him and Harris.

    –Nzierler; New Hartford NY

    You know what? It’s the smiles.

    Forget all the policy wonk, left versus

    right handwringing. Kamala and Tim smile

    and laugh and speak positively and light up a room.

    God, that’s refreshing.

    America needs to feel

    good about itself again.

    Do not, do NOT

    count those smiles out

    as a motivating factor for voters.

    — JTS; New York

    Two narratives I’ve seen emerge today among the commentariat are genuinely weird to me:

    The idea that Shapiro was somehow entitled to this seat, and it’s an upset or betrayal he didn’t get it. Yes, PA is an important state, but VP’s haven’t meant much to their home states for generations. And Walz is an amazing candidate with his own strengths distinct from Shapiro’s.

    I don’t think we have to overcomplicate it – Harris liked Walz more as her running mate. What is with the enormous commitment to Shapiro from those with platforms? Genuinely confused.

    2) A certain (narrow) group of self-described “centrists” saying Kamala Harris has now lost them by picking Walz. Really, you guys who called progressives crybabies time and again are saying you will sit out the election or vote for Trump because Harris picked a red-rural district congressman turned Upper Midwest governor, who coached high school football and owns guns?

    Why, because he successfully enacted progressive

    priorities like free meals for schoolchildren?

    It beggars belief and makes one think about which

    wing of the party are really the

    entitled “crybabies”…

    — Sara; NYC

    tonnes More

    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/06/opinion/tim-walz-kamala-harris.html#commentsContainer

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