Sawant’s colleagues back DeWolf: Seattle School Board member Zachary DeWolf dropped a bomb in the race for District 3 when he announced this week that he was both running against Councilmember Kshama Sawant and already had the support from the only two sitting council members who are not up for reelection this year: Teresa Mosqueda and Lorena González. DeWolf, who is running for City Council after barely over a year on the school board, is a citizen of the Chippewa Cree Nation and has been involved in local politics since he moved to Seattle in 2012. He was joined at his Tuesday campaign launch by his husband Derek DeWolf, a real estate agent who sells multi-million dollar properties in the Capitol Hill area.
Eight candidates are currently running for Sawant’s District 3 council seat but only two will make it through the primary in August. Sawant, as the sitting incumbent, is a favorite to make it through the primary, but who else will make it through? Will it be Sawant versus Egan Orion, the Chamber of Commerce candidate? Will it be Sawant versus Ami Nguyen, a public defender who has only lived in Seattle since late 2016? González and Mosqueda are putting their political weight behind DeWolf getting through and unseating Seattle’s most famous socialist.
Speaking of Teresa Mosqueda: She's pregnant! Amy Radil at KUOW has the exclusive story. Congrats Teresa!
Burger boy endorses Bowers: While everyone was freaking out over DeWolf’s entrance into the District 3 race, pot entrepreneur Logan Bowers and his wife were on Saul Spady’s local conservative talk radio show. Bowers didn’t say a whole lot about the council race on the show, other than complaining about the cost of running a small business in the city. But Spady, the heir to the Dick’s fortune (and someone who has a habit of saying “Pike’s Place Market”), announced his support for Bowers. “I strongly endorse Logan, I sent him my Democracy Vouchers,” Spady said.
Can candidates ask for a ‘suggested donation’ for Democracy Vouchers? The Facebook group Safe Seattle called out Shaun Scott, a socialist candidate in District 4, for asking for $50 in Democracy Vouchers as a “suggested donation” for an upcoming town hall Scott is hosting. The April 25 event’s description on Facebook includes the line “Free, with suggested $50 Democracy Voucher donation.” Safe Seattle claims this amounts to a violation of the city’s Democracy Voucher rules because the language is “tricky and misleading.” I’m not sure what is misleading about the event’s description, it seems pretty clear what Scott is asking for, but I wanted to see what the city thought. Does the city’s Ethics and Election Commission, which administers the program, think Scott crossed the line?
An employee with the commission told me it wasn’t clearly allowed or not allowed but said any official determination would need to come from Wayne Barnett, the executive director of the commission. Barnett wasn’t available today but if I hear back from the commission I’ll update this post.
Speaking of Scott and Democracy Vouchers: The socialist in District 4 seems to be getting them all. Shaun Scott has received 2,899 Democracy Vouchers which totals to $72,475 that his campaign can now spend. His next closest competitor in the Democracy Voucher race is his opponent Alex Pedersen, who has received $68,125 in vouchers. Third is Tammy Morales with $58,775 in vouchers. Here’s a table of the top ten recipients of vouchers as of April 9, the most recent data available.
*Those "invalid" vouchers are ones that have been incorrectly filled out or assigned to candidates who are not participating in the program.
Kshama Sawant is missing from that table because she has decided not to accept the Democracy Vouchers, instead funding her campaign entirely with private donations. She has received $76,726 so far with an average donation of $91 and 45 percent of her funds coming from donors outside of Seattle, according to the city's data. Residents in District 3, the district she represents, have given 21 percent of her donations.
