Given the composition of the electorate in off years, progressives should start to tailor their candidates messages for that electorate in local elections. It doesn't help to pretend that a better electorate will show up. Remember that more centrist candidates do badly in Seattle when the federal electorate shows up in Presidential election years.

“Corporate backed candidates” fared pretty poorly just two years ago. The difference is two years of a do-little progressive agenda in the face of market and cultural forces like private housing and cultural and social upheaval. Give a little more credit to the voters that found 15 mins to mail in their ballot. Voters just don’t agree that all is well on Council and in the City Attorneys Office!

You need to count the write-in vote, Rich. 1400 more in the city attorney race than the council position 9 race.

I confess that I'm one of the people who didn't vote in the city attorney race. Now I wish I'd voted for ntk. Mea culpa, mea culpa.

Rich Smith, always pleased to perform yeoman's work on behalf of Seattle's Marxist royalty.

@8 Check out his website. He has no policy positions beyond building (literal) bridges. The fact that he did as well as Jon Grant did in 2017 is startling.

Now that we know the final results let’s take a moment to reflect again on how badly the SECB f’ed up. Pete Homes clearly would have wiped the floor against either Davison or NKT and Brianna Thomas prob wins against Nelson although it would still be close. I hope readers remember that next year.

On election night the Twitterverse was bemoaning Seattles faux progressiveness and as it turns out Seattle is plenty progressive but there are limits. Radical, fringe candidates who espouse violence and destroying public safety is a bridge too far. There are many voters who voted against NKT/Oliver rather than for their opponents as demonstrated by Mosquedas win.

"Who are the people who had something to say in the Oliver race but nothing to say in the Thomas-Kennedy race?"

Why is the Stranger so quick to ignore NTK's immature tweets? Every picture I see of NTK shows a grown-up grey haired woman. Yet only a year ago she was tweeting like a 20 year old. ACAB is a dumb phrase that serves nobody, let alone a politician. We expect cops to be people who would never say "All (any word) Are Bastards". But it's ok for City Attorney? In response to a video of cars on fire in Kenosha she says "Good Start". You think people want to vote for that kind of tantrum thinking? I've just mentioned a few here but we could go on. The SECB endorsement refers to this as "some allegedly NTK-involved tweets that say pee pee poo poo on the cops." Would the SECB be so generous about focusing on policies if it was a right-winger popping off on twitter?

This kind of tweeting reminds me of Trump. And the people who ignore it remind me of the MAGA people who ignore Trump's "shithole countries" phrases and similar.

Also, why would the voters want a City Attorney who is openly antagonistic towards the cops? It doesn't make us believe a bunch of cooperative governance is gonna go on.

And maybe it's possible the people of Seattle aren't thrilled about the idea of misdemeanors being ignored as crimes.

But whatever, my opinions must've been paid for by corporate money. I'm not pleased about voting for a Republican candidate for the first time ever but she brought me to it. Somehow the voters get blamed for an unpopular campaign.

If your base only shows up on even years, maybe your base isn't taking this very seriously at all.

This is almost as much fun as last year at this time, watching Trump re-lose the election, each and every day, for months. This time, every ballot drop finally causes yet another illiberal extremist to admit failure. And, like Donnie, their bitter refusals to admit obvious reality has but one effect: it merely exacerbates the already considerable pain they and their supporters feel.

CM Gonzalez was down THIRTY POINTS on Election Night, and yet she and the Stranger held out hope for eventual victory. For all of the Stranger's reminders of how Moon lost to Durkan by a "mere" dozen points, she started twenty points down on her non-Election Night. If that deficit was insurmountable, why did anyone bother hoping Gonzalez, NTK, and Oliver would somehow do better? Especially when it was obvious the voters were loudly rejecting all three of them.

Any word on whether Nikkita Oliver plans to go full-out Trump, and never concede the obvious? Then, at least, there would be one tiny little aspect of Seattle's politics for which CM Sawant could not earn the title, "Seattle's Very Own Trump of the Left."

@7 ST2, Republicans are Nazis. I assume you disagree, but you can afford to disagree. I'm not going to vote for a Republican for likely the rest of my life. There has to be consequences for being a Republican, even if it's effectively a matter of principle.

OTOH, I'm not voting for NTK either... I'm not getting any of that stink on me. If the political position was important enough not to fall into Republican hands, like a Congressional seat, I might have held my nose and voted for her. But it's not.

And the argument that by not voting for someone, I'm effectively voting for someone, may be true, but there are lines I will not cross even if it's to my own detriment.

What The Stranger is too myopic to examine (as is the case on countless issues that they incessantly whine about every day) is how we ended up with candidates that a majority of voters didn't want to vote for.

Post Alley is the new Stranger, but with actual journalism.

keep blaming "teh corporationz!! 1!!!"
totally doesn't have anything to do with our violent crop of meth'd-out ne'er-do-wells.
here's a recent one from west seattle; two guys stealing a cat converter in the middle of the day crack a woman's skull and knock her unconscious after she catches them in the act. middle of the day, not a si gle fuck given by these guys because they know if they get caught ain't shit going to happen to them because current leadership are useless trash.

@17 ST2, I won't belabor this because it's largely semantics that we disagree over, but the Nazis weren't what we think of as Nazis either in 1933. There were "moderate" Nazis in 1933 as well. Repubs are following the Nazi playbook. While I casually refer to the Republican party as Nazis, it's just an easy way to encompass everything they're doing as Nazi-like with a word. "Fascists" doesn't always cover it for me, depending on the context.

I can't admire anyone who calls themselves a Republican. If Cheney, Romney, et al, had any real guts, they would leave the Republican party. I still wouldn't admire them, but I'd respect them for doing that.

@18 ST2, and thank you for referencing it and posting the link. I agree, it's a good sum up, and just skimming over the posted article titles, I'll be spending more time at Post Alley and less time here.

@23 González was a bad candidate, as well.

Are the "progressives" who lost actually progressive? Or are they more empty spouters, knee-jerk adherents to some dogmatic PC code, AND easily, naively susceptible to provocateurs? Could one imagine that "Defund" and "ACAB" were actually dreamed up by someone authentically and consciously and intelligently progressive AND interested and committed to winning votes and elections?! Really?

Are they helping the people they say they want to help?

Time for authentic progressives to clean house of the phonies and incompetents and ego-trippers and get on a smart road to progressive politics. Where things actually are accomplished and coalitions with the undecideds are not only built but sustained. Those are necessary, as ideologically imperfect as that may be in some people's minds. There's no other route to progressive success, which is now vital to the survival of human habitat, democracy and justice. This isn't some sharing circle exercise, where mutual headnodding counts as success. This is a knife fight in the mud with the forces of darkness. And they are well-financed, well-organized and committed.

"BALLOTS RETURNED BY AGE RANGE"
Hooray for us old fuckers!

The conservatism of the American electorate, well-documented by political scientists like Louis Schubert and Thomas Dye is in full play here, with the Seattle yahoos rejecting a slate of intelligent, qualified progressive candidates in favor of the conservative to moderate Seattle Times recommendations.

Expect more of the same gridlock for the foreseeable future.

I'm a Republican. Forever and ever amen.

@24 ST2, if only you knew...

But I'm not interested in that. That's just a word usage that irks you. I'm far more concerned that we (as a nation) continue to treat the present-day Republican party as anything but evil. You voted for one. That's what concerns me.

I don't care how much people try to down-play Davison's Republicanism or connections to Trump. She stands with Republicans. She stands with fascists. You continue to normalize what they do and what they stand for by voting for them when it suits you. Anyone who votes for a Republican at this point should be ashamed of themselves.

@29: No reason to be ashamed PinP simply because an inept populist democrat monster hijacked the republican party for a term. Embarrassed yes, ashamed no.

@29: "Anyone who votes for a Republican at this point should be ashamed of themselves."

Then Bernie Sanders' constituents should feel very, very ashamed, because they also elected a Republican governor. Perhaps you could tell them just how wrong-headed they were?

"I don't care how much people try to down-play Davison's Republicanism or connections to Trump. She stands with Republicans."

Sure, let's run with that one. What does it say about NTK, that Seattle's liberal constituency chose a REPUBLICAN over her? Why did the Stranger endorse NTK, after agreeing that the incumbent had already put most of NTK's program into action, and that he'd been supporting much of what the Stranger wanted? When was the last time Seattle elected a REPUBLICAN to any office? What, exactly, did it take to get them to vote REPUBLICAN?

Blame the voters, accuse them of sympathizing with Nazis, whatever. The more you ignore the trainwreck which was NKT's entire run for office, the more likely similar outcomes will happen in future. As @31 told you, you might want to try understanding why an electorate which preferred Clinton over Trump and, yes, Bernie over Clinton, suddenly voted REPUBLICAN. Or you can play Purity Enforcer to an electorate which just rejected exactly that enforcement. Your choice.

@31 ST2, @32 tensor, what imaginary opponent do you think I am this time?

You know what you guys are? You're extreme centrists.

Just like there's extreme right-wing and extreme left-wing, there's extreme centrism. Extreme centrists are stuck in their centrist bubble, and are unable or unwilling to see the structures that supports their bubble. They are of similar character to any extremist.

The bubble spans the spectrum.

PVR might be the Republican in that non-partisan council race, but as the SECB might know if they covered races in places their paper has hard copy distribution, Torgerson is, politely, something else.

@33 that is really one of the most inane comments I have ever read. "Extreme Centrist"? Are you serious? By definition being a centrist is someone who is able to find the middle ground that benefits the greatest group of people and does the most good for society. If being an extreme centrist is a thing than I would proudly waive that flag but the lengths you are going through to justify extreme candidate is bordering on delusional.

Seattle politics is its own idealogical spectrum. Basically the most far left candidate gets labeled the "Progressive" and anyone to the right of them is all of a sudden a corporate schill. In any city outside of Seattle Harrell, Nelson and yes in some cases even Davison would be labeled the progressive candidate. NKT and Oliver are not progressives and trying to sell people on that idea was a bridge too far. Progressives don't want to dismantle society and completely blow up public safety. That is the role of anarchists and marxists which is exactly what they were and why they were summarily rejected by the votes. That is not a failure of progessivenism that is a failure of the TS and other left leaning media in this town to properly identify the true progressive candidates and support them.

@33: I don't imagine you to be anyone, because I don't care who you might be. I respond to the statements you have clearly made. By your logic, the very same voters who elect Bernie Sanders must be ashamed of the Republican governor they have also elected. You can't answer that point, so you simply ignore it. Likewise, you know that examining the actual choice Seattle voters had, that of NTK or a REPUBLICAN, they chose the REPUBLICAN. So you ignore NTK's very clear statements asserting that as City Attorney, she would refuse to prosecute any assaults, including domestic violence. (Yes, she weaseled on that last point when asked.) Her trove of insane shitposts on Twitter confirmed her judgement was not to be trusted, so you ignore all of that as well. You just keep declaring that voting for a REPUBLICAN is something No True Seattleite could ever possibly do, even though a majority of Seattle voters just did exactly that.

You cannot support a crazy person having power, and then refuse to accept responsibility for the consequences of having given such support. The Stranger endorsed the insane candidate over the incumbent, and so the subsequent election of a REPUBLICAN is partly the Stranger's fault. Blaming Seattle's voters for making the least-worst of the choice they had will just get the Stranger more of the same next time. You can join the Stranger in that, or you can take an honest look at what just happened. Your "extreme centrist" nonsense suggests you're no more interested in the latter than is the Stranger.