If there was any doubt that the progressive moment in Seattle has ended, the now certified November election results have confirmed it. Centrist and conservative candidates have taken the city council. The only progressive-left voice that did succeed eked out a victory by the smallest amounts. As District 4 candidate Ron Davis put it in his concession email, over the last two elections, ten of the eleven seats in Seattle government shifted to the right by an average of 11 percentage points. 

It’s a moment of reflection for progressive and leftist activists in the city and the region. Not only was this month’s loss a bruising, but there is a feeling that a torch is passing, a lull in progressive work and ideas. Organizations that once were large and active have had members leave, gone dormant, or retooled their staffs. Many groups have not gone back to regular meetings since the pandemic forced Zoom calls, and the work has suffered.

Two big exits from the council exacerbated this feeling. Teresa Mosqueda is hanging up the work of building human values into the city’s budget for a better paying and lower spotlight job at the County Council. Kshama Sawant, the longest tenured council member, decided against running again. Sawant’s perpetual outpost at the far left end of the political spectrum gave a lot of cover for the City Council to make many impactful programs. Progressives gripe loudly about Sawant’s tendency to monologue or vote against their proposals, but her role as a lightning rod did as much for progress as any yes vote. And these exits come after Mike O’Brien got shouted out of office in 2020 and Lorena González lost her bid for mayor in an equally disastrous 2021 election.

The sense of listlessness goes deeper. Some may have to do with the collapse of Twitter. The social media platform came to amazing maturity for exchanging ideas during the first district elections in 2019, maintaining contact with organizations through the pandemic, and mobilizing direct action during the Black Lives Matter protests. Now the newly rechristened X is Sunday morning gutter residue from outside the bar mixed with straight up hate speech posing as thoughtful debate between the two most irritating guys from 10th grade. At best, Twitter has become the cork board next to the restrooms at the grocery store. It could be useful to put a poster there, but seems drowned out by the scams and noxious fumes.

All together, the air has left the progressive balloon. 

But let’s be really honest. The last ten years of Progressive Seattle have produced some transformative wins. The City Council passed a head tax that was quickly recoiled in a spectacular loss. But the next Council passed a bigger package that’s a massive success, raising enough revenue to cover its own promises plus plug the budget deficit. The Council passed campaign vouchers, a sweetened beverage tax, and required hazard pay cover essential workers during the pandemic. And Seattle rewrote swaths of the zoning ordinance including rules covering industrial lands, home businesses, and single family zoning. That’s even before the city passed a social housing initiative and a billion-dollar housing levy.

The Progressives are not winning. The Progressives won. It’s been so successful that it’s produced its own ecosystem of white-wing grifters who built their reputations on “surviving” Seattle’s leftist politics. What better evidence of success than having mid-talent shills formulate a whole career complaining about you?

Bruce Harrell’s record as mayor is a comparative failure. All the measures that the broadcast news goes to — mass retail theft, downtown Third Avenue issues, and budget holes — are all broadening under his watch. The grand recovery summer in Seattle owes more to Taylor Swift than any AI hallucination produced by Harrell’s office. His flagship program to address homelessness, announced with fanfare as a partnership with Big Business, has utterly collapsed into very One Seattle finger pointing. He didn’t even need a win to make a showy press conference about the plan, and poof, it’s gone.

That’s the game, and it’s instructive for anyone trying to understand modern local politics. Success for progressive initiatives has been extensive, but it has felt as elusive as a retweet because so much activism happened online. The progressives have altered the fundamental voting, budgeting, and housing foundations of the city. Meanwhile, the Mayor and Chief of Police can always get on broadcast television to announce alleyway bocce courts, and that becomes the news and the narrative, reshown at 4pm, 5pm, 7:30pm, and 11pm.

It also raises the question of which chunk of progressive activism has taken the beating. Perhaps, Seattle’s experiencing an attrition of performative White folks creating 501(c)s and Twitter followings rather than results. While the Fox News grifters take potshots at the “homelessness industrial complex” because their stifled wit can’t come up with anything new, there’s some useful research suggesting that there are simply too many nonprofits. Crowded fields of small activist startups can drain resources from peers, even if there’s not a competition for profit.

There are still a ton of people doing the actual work of coalition building and legislative sausage making. Spectacularly smart and competent electeds throughout city and regional government are pushing very progressive ideas from increased housing to equitable taxation to highway removal. Potentially, we could add good transit to that list, but Harrell is doing everything to add that to his tally of failures.

In the end, it could just be that Seattle progressives have reached a cyclical end. One group is tired, another’s ready to move to other work, and a lot have hit a wall of exhaustion. The expertise that drove activism through tweets or startup culture isn’t as useful anymore. People are allowed to develop other interests. That’s fine. It’s time. 

Everyone and everything needs rest. The most bountiful fields get a fallow season after a long and productive summer. This decade-long summer of progressive advancements in Seattle has been wildly productive. Winter is here, and we can look forward to a blooming of new ideas and new activists in the spring to come.

The post Progressive Seattle Enters a Fallow Season first appeared on The Urbanist.

The 2023 election did not go the way progressives wanted. Four of five candidates that Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell endorsed won. Meanwhile one of the two races that Harrell sat out — Districts 2 and 7 — also went the mayor’s way, with conservative-leaning Bob Kettle pledging to back the mayor’s public safety policies. Harrell wanted a centrist majority on city council; he got it.

Centrists opened up big leads on election night, and only two candidates were able to mount comebacks. Below are the latest results by district, which were updated November 20th with the Urbanist-endorsed candidate emboldened:

1. Rob Saka 54.1% defeats Maren Costa 45.5% (-8.7 points)
2. Tammy Morales 50.7% defeats Tanya Woo 49.1% (+1.6 points)
3. Joy Hollingworth 53% to Alex Hudson 46.7% (-6.3 points)
4. Maritza Rivera 50.3% to Ron Davis 49.4% (-0.85 points)
5. Cathy Moore 64.1% to ChrisTiana ObeySumner 35.6% (-28.6 points)
6. Dan Strauss 52.3% to Pete Hanning 47.2% (+5.1 points)
7. Bob Kettle 50.8% to Andrew Lewis 48.9% (-1.9 points)

The takes are flying for why Seattle progressives underperformed again in 2023 just like they did in 2021. The most prevalent analysis of the election, especially in centrist media, is that public safety was the dominant issue of the election and voters trusted the centrist slate on the issue more than progressives. There’s polling data to back this up; so, perhaps the more pressing question is why Seattle odd-year voters have so much more trust in centrists than progressives when the public safety policies they support — hiring more cops and also rolling out civilian response programs — often appear similar at face value, with potentially different degrees of emphasis.

Asked what would be different about the incoming council, Harrell confirmed he expected them to be more in line with his views and back up his policies, particularly on public safety, alluding to his push to roll out controversial “ShotSpotter” gunshot detection technology.

“So first of all, I think that this council will be aligned with me on public safety strategies, that they’re willing to try new things, such as technology,” Harrell told KING 5. “I think our old council, quite frankly, were sort of coming along with the things that I want to try.” Meanwhile the new council “they’re in there with me to help recruit officers and do that kind of work.”

A few more narratives or anxieties have emerged beyond the public safety explanation. Did progressives run on the wrong issues, with their messages too wonky, varied, and complicated to break through? Did they tack too much to the center? Did they tack too much to the left? Did they have the right platform but fail to communicate it effectively? Did they simply get outspent and out-organized even though their message was pretty on the mark?

Across the seven races, it’s probably safe to say it’s a number of these factors at play and the reasons for losing weren’t exactly the same thing in every race. The Urbanist Elections Committee will host a panel analyzing the election and tackling that question on Wednesday, November 29 in Belltown.

One thing the centrist side did incredibly well was blurring the line with their opponents on issues where they were weak. What’s progressive anyway, right? Aren’t we all left of center in Seattle? Whether you believe that or not, it worked at making most Seattle voters, who generally characterize themselves as progressives, feel comfortable voting for the business-backed moderate candidate. These candidates splashed phrases like “will bring common sense back” and “solutions-oriented” on their mailers and websites, but were very light on details.

Without more policy details, it’s hard to judge whether they are more progressive-leaning or centrists or outright conservatives. While progressives took considerable efforts to brand progressive opponents as extremists and radical, the left failed to brand their opponents and land attacks in an effective manner. Getting progressive messaging out is an uphill battle, but not one the various campaigns or the movement writ large fought very well.

While centrist pundits and leaders have expended incredible energy to brand progressives as extreme and out of touch, progressives have not been nearly as effective at defining their opponents rather than letting them define themselves. The centrists bristle at being labeled conservatives since they consider themselves mainstream Democrats in line with President Joe Biden. However, opposing raising new revenue to close a large looming budget shortfall and instead focusing on program cuts to make up the difference is a classic fiscal conservative position.

In fact, the campaigns that centrists ran bear some similarities to races that Republicans run for suburban seats, with the emphasis on backing the blue and painting opponents as hellbent on defunding and undermining the police even when that’s at odds with their statements and actual positions.

Kyler Parris, campaign manager for D1 candidate Maren Costa noted the conservative themes on display this cycle.

“I’d love for someone to explain how running a city council race entirely on standing with police/increasing police budget, jailing drug users, and increasing homeless sweeps is all ‘centrist.’” Parris tweeted. “Those are, without a doubt, conservative policies backed by conservative donors.”

But calling them conservatives just leads to tedious exchanges about how they’re actually mainstream Biden Democrats and so forth. Let’s call them by their own branding: Commonsense Moderates, but we can shorten it to ComMods or Commodities. These known commodities were highly effective at raising vast sums from the business community — the National Realtors Association, the master builders, and a handful of local real estate tycoons have been particularly active this cycle.

As I wrote in 2021, Seattle’s centrist machine is formidable; part of the issue is the left’s continued penchant to underestimate the political machine against them and not develop a viable strategy to win now, rather than fall on righteous swords to prove a point and maybe win in a decade. Yes the commodities outspent the progressives by a roughly two-to-one margin, but that’s basically the same every election — even when they have a progressive wave like in 2019.

With the right message and strategy, progressive should be able to win even when they are outspent. That didn’t happen this year. The centrist commodities ran as a fairly united slate with similar themes and remarkable message discipline. Progressives ran as a loosely associated hodgepodge.

District 1 – Business slays labor

Rob Saka ended up winning rather easily despite Maren Costa’s ability to unite labor, urbanists, environmentalists, and all of her primary opponents against Saka. Thus, one thing this race showed was that endorsements from eliminated primary challengers in a race don’t matter that much. Saka did just fine without them. He had labor fairly united against him as well, but that did not slow him down. He has the endorsement of Mayor Bruce Harrell and the Seattle Times, and that proved to be enough.

Saka was able to portray himself as taking the city in a new direction even as policy specifics he was able to lay out were largely in line with the status quo. In fact, hesitancy to raise new revenue could preclude large new initiatives on key themes like public safety, housing stability, homelessness and so forth. Saka’s history of fervently opposing a road divider safety feature added to Delridge Way with the RapidRide H Line — even comparing it to Trump’s border wall — didn’t come to light until after the election via a PubliCola story.

Messages around climate change didn’t appear to break through this cycle. Costa framed herself as the climate candidate and labor champion. She lost by 8.7 points as Saka seemed to own the issue of public safety. Saka pledged, “I will provide a more thoughtful, balanced approach to public safety that includes: policing and enforcement, police reform and officer accountability, and civilian-led responses to certain crises situations.” Effectively this is the all-of-the-above strategy the city is already embarked on. But apparently it sounds good when framed in opposition to “defund” extremism.

District 2 – Tammy Morales withstands the centrist tide

Progressives can take solace in incumbent Tammy Morales winning her race to give them a champion on council. While Morales was down nine points on election night, late returns have seen a roughly 11-point swing toward the progressive in this race. Morales is set to win by nearly two points. While Morales had won handily in 2019, this was a close race.

Morales chose not to run from her record on police accountability, and, while it was close, this election showed D2 voters were with her. Her focus on upstream solutions (rather than more police and prison time) cut against the grain of other winning campaigns, but she pulled it off. “Data show[s] us that the safest communities are the ones that are fully funded, not the ones with the most police. That’s why my focus has always been keeping people in their homes, ensuring access to healthy food and good-paying jobs, and empowering young people to be community leaders,” Morales wrote on her issue page.

Beyond withstanding the siege on the issue of public safety, Morales also can point to a strong record on social housing, road safety, climate, and economic justice and that likely earned her votes from other quarters. As a steadfast vote for the JumpStart Seattle corporate payroll tax — which is popular with voters — it was clear she was willing to raise progressive revenue to pay for her priorities while making the city’s tax code less regressive. Morales was able to overcome the headwinds against her and prevail.

District 3 – Joy coasts, turnout craters

After electing a socialist in two straight elections plus a recall, District 3 seemed like safe terrain for progressives to hold. But then something weird happened. First, centrists ran a strong candidate in Joy Hollingsworth, who had major appeal in the Central District, where her family has deep ties going back generations. Progressives thought they had a fairly strong candidate to go toe-to-toe in Alex Hudson, but a few key blunders proved decisive, leading to a six-point loss.

Hollingsworth hired arguably the most high-powered political consulting firm in the region: Christian Sinderman’s Northwest Passage. Hollingsworth was able to position herself as fairly progressive even as her support from the business community remained rock solid, blurring the line between progressive and centrist in the race. It’s effectively the strategy Sinderman used in electing Ed Murray mayor back in 2013.

Out of the gates, Hudson hired centrist-whisper Sandeep Kaushik as her campaign consultant, taking the strategy of ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, hire their consultant.’ This move raised eyebrows and caused some unease in progressive and labor circles. Kaushik’s work has included consulting on behalf of the last three centrist commodity mayors (Harrell, Jenny Durkan, and Ed Murray) and lobbying for corporations like Lyft and Comcast. With Lyft and other Kaushik clients fighting unionization efforts and workers rights legislation, the hire did not build trust with labor.

If Hudson’s hope was that Kaushik could help her campaign build a bridge to the business community while developing an effective strategy to insulate herself from attacks from the right, that did not come to pass. Instead the Kaushik association and general campaign disorganization around how to secure the MLK Labor Council nod led the Hollingsworth camp to steal that key endorsement out from under them, using a superior knowledge of MLK Labor procedures and better organizing among voting members. It’s not at endorsement they should have taken for granted facing a strong challenger.

In short, the overtures Hudson made to the center didn’t get her much, but it did cost her labor support and did nothing to combat the trend of lower turnout among the key progressive base of renters and young people. Kshama Sawant garnered more than 22,000 votes in 2019 (when the D3 population was smaller, to boot). In 2023, Hudson turned out less than 16,000 votes. The lack of contrast or fiery messaging seemed to mean more voters just sat the election out. Overall, D3 voters cast 42,956 votes in 2019, but less than 35,000 in 2023.

District 4 – Davis comeback comes up just short

Fellow known commodity Maritza Rivera will take the reins from Alex Pedersen in D4, but it was by the skin of her teeth. Davis trails by just 243 votes or 0.66 points at time of post. Ballot counts have slowed to a trickle, effectively ruling out a comeback. Davis was able to unite progressives early in his race, but facing the same challenging dynamics as the other progressives, he still couldn’t close the deal.

After running as a strident progressive urbanist in the primary, Davis made some overtures to not-in-my-backyard activists in the final months of the election, publicizing the endorsement of Pedersen staffer and long-time neighborhood activist Toby Thaler. Early vote returns suggest Rivera still dominated in wealthy single family areas of the district — the same strategy that carried Pedersen to victory in D4. But the move could have sapped some enthusiasm in urbanist and progressive circles, with PubliCola’s Erica Barnett flagging the move and also making hay of Davis signing a pledge to not upzone “The Ave” in the U District.

Another possibility is that minor endorsements and positions on upzoning the Ave made no discernible difference in the race, but the failure to land on an issue that really fired up the progressive base did hurt Davis. The Urbanist reported that youth (ages 18 to 24) turnout was down 25% in D4 over last cycle. In a close race, that could have made all the difference.

It wasn’t just the youngest voters who didn’t turn out; turnout was down across demographics. Overall D4 had 12% more votes cast in 2019 even with a smaller population. Turnout was 55% then versus 48% this year. Shaun Scott garnered 15,568 votes in 2019 while Davis won just shy of 14,000. D4 is trending toward being a progressive council district, but with abysmal turnout it might never get there.

Davis seemed to have momentum in the primary in part due to unabashedly progressive values and a stridently pro-housing message. Rivera was able to hug his positions and make it seem like she had solutions too, but Davis did not respond well enough to continue making a progressive contrast while effectively painting his opponent as a phony posing on these issues.

As Seattle embarks on a pivotal Comprehensive Plan update, Rivera’s housing affordability campaign plan is a very lightly sketched ‘both-sides’ word salad: “Expanding housing options like quad-plexes, townhomes, row houses, and mixed-use development, especially along transit corridors is essential to ensuring that working families can live near work. It is unfair for blue collar workers to have to face long commutes after putting in a full day’s work. Unfortunately, we’ve let bad politics pit us against each other. On one side is more density seemingly no matter the impact on our neighborhoods and on the other are those that want to preserve what makes this City such an amazing place to live. This is a false dichotomy that has led to our city both failing to address our affordability crisis while at the same time approving developments that hurt and displace communities.”

Perhaps Rivera has a magical “good politics” solution that will lead the city to join hands and build a ton of housing and make it affordable for everyone without upsetting anyone along the way. That would be stupendous. Voters will have four years to figure out what Rivera means by her bromides around hot button issues. Hopefully they’ll be happy with the results. 

District 5: Cathy Moore cleans up

District 5 was the most lopsided race. Former King County Superior Court judge Cathy Moore pulled off a 28-point win over social equity consultant ChrisTiana ObeySumner. Though in the centrist lane, Moore ran to the left of most of the commodity field like Rivera and that seemed to cause her to soak up all the oxygen in the room, so to speak. ObeySumner defined themself as a leftist wonk. Given a mildly progressive alternative with much more institutional support, D5 voters made that choice instead.

Part of Moore’s advantage was structural. Moore was a prolific fundraiser and ObeySumner raised the least of any candidate. Moore was a full-time campaigner with a former judge’s gravitas and pension. ObeySumner was a part-time campaigner because they needed to keep their day job to pay their bills. Moore hired Sinderman’s Northwest Passage to be her consultant and took on an air of inevitability that helped her win the MLK Labor endorsement even from the center lane.

ObeySumner made it through the primary on the power of The Stranger endorsement. The Urbanist Elections Committee backed Nilu Jenks in the primary, but The Stranger found Jenks’ diplomatic answer on tax policy disqualifying. ObeySumner edged Jenks out by a few points with Moore well ahead. In the general election, the tactic of chastising progressives to get off their butts didn’t close the gap for ObeySumner.

“Moore won the primary, and that made some so-called progressives preemptively admit defeat, as though ObeySumner cannot win an election,” The Stranger wrote in their endorsement. “News flash, bozos: They can. You just have to get your ass to the ballot box and tell all your progressive North Seattle friends to do the same. Vote ObeySumner.”

A business-backed political action committee spent $113,000 in negative campaigning against ObeySumner, much of it on mailers branding them a defund-the-police extremist. That sum is about as much as ObeySumner spent on their whole campaign. As a result, their message was drowned out, with Moore also having $173,000 to spend on positive campaigning.

Hey, look y'all! New IE attack ads just dropped. It's a full 8.5×12 sheet

This is comical pic.twitter.com/j8KRpeYcvH

— ChrisTiana ObeySumner (@CObeySumner) November 4, 2023

Losing by such a large margin, it’s safe to say the campaign didn’t just lose from having their message drowned out, but also suffered from not calibrating it well to begin with. For example the first sentence of ObeySumner’s priorities page reads “The lack of affordable housing in Seattle is a complex issue that requires a multifaceted approach.” While it’s a true statement, it’s not the type of rallying cry that galvanizes fickle off-year voters. For better or worse, voters want to hear help is on the way soon. Explaining how complicated the problems are isn’t often effective voter persuasion.

District 6: Strauss triangulates and survives

Dan Strauss was the second incumbent to survive the 2023 election, but he took a much different strategy than Morales did. While Morales ran on her progressive record, Strauss ran from his, to some extent, and cozied up to Mayor Harrell. Strauss’ loyalty earned him Harrell’s endorsement and he was also the only Stranger-lane candidate to benefit from a fundraising advantage rather than a deficit.

Opponent Pete Hanning ran a listless campaign, which also helped Strauss. No political action committee emerged to funnel campaign cash on behalf of Hanning. Hanning tried to ding Strauss for his 2020 support for reining in police spending and the harsher tactics the department was deploying, such as chemical weapons. However, Strauss took a big swing with a campaign mailer loudly proclaiming that defund was a mistake and that he supports fully funding the Seattle Police Department and the mayor’s plan to hire 500 cops.

Deprived of his wedge issue and the business-backed megaphone to broadcast it, Hanning’s campaign fell flat. Still, the fact he came within five points of dethroning Strauss without any outside support is also eye-opening and shows the anxious, anti-incumbent mood this cycle. 

There is also a case that District 6 remains solid progressive ground even after redistricting added conservative western Magnolia. The district again led the city in turnout rate, with 52% while every other district was in the 40s. Voters didn’t have a full-throated progressive option, but they picked the more progressive of the two. Strauss probably ran farther to the center than he needed to, and hopefully future D6 candidates can strike the right note for this district.

District 7: Lewis loses base then loses election

While his two colleagues took diverging strategies to survive re-election, Lewis basically split the difference with alternating appeals to the left and the center. It did not work for him. Conservative challenger Bob Kettle edged him out by about 444 votes or two percentage points. 

Unlike Hanning, Kettle had enthusiastic support from the city’s wealthy elite. $178,000 in outside money poured in on Kettle’s behalf. Still the D7 race was a close one and if a few more things had broken for Lewis, he could have easily won. One key ingredient that was missing for him this cycle was strong labor support.

Unite Here Local 8, a union which represents hotel workers, spent heavily helping to elect Lewis in 2019, dropping $350,000 into the race. While Lewis enjoyed MLK Labor endorsements and several others again in 2023, that backing was much more tepid and did not come with the same financial muscle. Unite Here didn’t even endorse in the race, let alone invest in it this time around. Without a labor spending spree to counterbalance business spending, Lewis was outspent two to one like most of the rest of the progressive field.

In a familiar story, much of the outside spending was spent hammering Lewis for his stances on policing. Councilmember Sara Nelson, who was very active on behalf of the commodity slate, provided fodder for the attacks with a breathless quote saying Lewis’ vote against her drug prosecution bill literally cost lives. Locking drug users up or coercing them into treatment with jail time has a poor track record at preventing drug deaths or encouraging long-term sobriety, but it was scripted to be the attack line this cycle and Nelson used it to the fullest.

The brutal, fact-free attack on a colleague appeared to be very damaging all the same. Nelson could very well be making a bid for council president in January and odds are she has a loyal vote in Kettle. Taking such shots at a colleague might make progressives wary of working with Nelson, but on the current council that’s not much of a problem for her. The centrists now have a supermajority.

The irony of it is that Lewis backtracked and voted for the drug prosecution bill in September after casting the deciding vote against it in June. In his vote against, Lewis cited the lack of new funding for treatment programs or tangible commitment from City Prosecutor Ann Davison, who had just unceremoniously axed a successful community court diversion program. He pledged to support the underlying concept of empowering the City Attorney to prosecute public drug use and dealing once the commitment to diversion was stronger, and he did get some minor concessions in the revised version in September. However, the political damage was already done by that point, with his opponents seizing on it as a line of attack. Voting for the bill in September did not cause his opponents to back off, but it may have sapped votes from people excited he had made a stand for criminal justice reform in June. And broader than this particular issue area, it furthered the narrative of him as a waffler.

Meanwhile, Kettle coasted by with a campaign that didn’t even try to put a housing plan together and papered over his troubling record of opposing new housing as a leader on the Queen Anne Community Council. Kettle’s campaign issues page says “We must also significantly increase the construction of affordable housing at all levels, across the city” and then proceeds to offer no hint of how he’d accomplish that. His hesitancy to raise taxes will make scaling up affordable housing production and expanding homeless shelters very hard, and he strategically avoided situations where he’d have to answer for these holes in his plans.

Kettle was the only candidate out of all 14 in the general election to decline an invitation to participate in a forum on the Comprehensive Plan hosted by a coalition led by the Housing Development Consortium and Futurewise, which includes The Urbanist. Kettle also skipped The Urbanist’s questionnaire and endorsement interview where he would have been pressed to sketch out his approach to adding housing and funding the social services he says he wants.

It’s odd that the election may have been decided by Lewis delaying a drug prosecution bill which history suggests won’t be effective anyway by a mere three months before voting for it after all. Meanwhile, Kettle barely had to answer for his sketchy campaign plans. But that is the maturity of our political system at the moment.

Where to go from here

Both Morales’s fire-up-the-base strategy and Strauss’s own-the-center strategy can win. Lewis’s tactic of not really picking a side didn’t work, but D7 is also the least favorable district for progressives of the three currently. Is it easier to follow in the footsteps of Morales or Strauss? It may depend on the district. But one thing to consider: Running to the center could also lead to pyrrhic victories for progressives, limiting their ability to deliver progressive policy wins once in office.

Voters appear highly motivated by the issue of public safety right now and winning this issue could turn the tide for progressives. But no single campaign can solve this. It takes progressives messaging on the issue consistently in-between elections to begin raising awareness of progressive solutions for public safety. It will also take a group effort to force housing issues into the center of our political debate, creating another policy space where progressives have the edge.

Storming back into power should be possible, because progressive urbanists have made gains in other parts of the region. There’s no reason Seattle should be any different.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Mayor Harrell endorsed Tanya Woo, but he did not endorse anyone in D2. We regret the error.

The post Takeaways from Seattle’s 2023 Election first appeared on The Urbanist.

In the days leading up to the Seattle City Council election, street posts around the University of Washington were plastered with concert flyers and Palestinian flags, but not a single campaign sign. Youth largely sat the election out: In the most recent citywide tally, only 3% of ballots were cast by 18-24 year-olds, despite that demographic representing around 10% of Seattle’s population. 

In District 4, which encompasses UW with its 50,000 students, progressive, Urbanist-endorsed Ron Davis trails business-backed Maritza Rivera by a mere 240 votes in the latest count Friday. Fewer young voters cast their ballots in D4 in 2023 than 2019. Could UW student voting turnout have made the difference for Davis?

Ron Davis’s campaign manager Diego Batres devoted considerable resources to UW outreach, but concludes, “I say this affectionately, having just graduated myself, that students are just very fickle. And organizing students can be very fickle.”

Batres points to the timing, for one thing. Primary elections occur in the summer, when campus is hollowed out. By the time the general rolls around, students are distracted with midterms.

Second, young people move around a lot, and may not update their registration, says Seattle University professor Patrick Schoettmer. Ballots get lost or misplaced all the time. Plus, convincing students to change their registration to D4 is a tall order, when most see their dorm as merely a temporary home.

“If [progressives] want to get students to be more engaged in Seattle politics, you’ve got to convince them that they’re spending the next four years of their life there, and if they’re 18 when they’re coming in, and they’re 22 when they’re coming out, that’s like a fifth of their whole life [up to that point],” Schoettmer says.

Young people are harder for campaigns to track down, too. Older voters are a safer bet, with their landlines, established addresses, and willingness to talk to strangers. The dominant divide in Seattle politics isn’t just between The Stranger endorsees and the Seattle Times picks, but between renters and homeowners, Schoettmer says. Hence why yard signs tend to skew conservative (by Seattle standards). Canvassing in the dorms presents a challenge, too, as students are not allowed to put up non-approved posters or slip pamphlets under doors.

“Any campaign that is building its campaign around turning out renters and turning out young people begins in a hole. You have to work harder from the outset,” Schoettmer says.

Famously, one Seattle campaign did seize on the youth vote: Kshama Sawant. Not only were her posters ubiquitous, but her volunteers would constantly email Schoettmer asking if she could speak to his class. Neither District 3 candidate from this year, Alex Hudson nor Joy Hollingsworth, reached out to him.

“Sawant’s great gift was that she understood that campaigns are effectively a competitive storytelling event. She knew how to drive a message, and she knew how to get attention. And that’s what you have to do if you want to mobilize and capture the attention of younger voters,” explains Schoettmer.

In 2019, D4 candidate Shaun Scott followed the Sawant playbook. Preliminary data suggests that Scott turned out more young people than Davis, although final precinct-level results won’t be available until later this month. Just over 2,000 young voters cast their ballots in 2019’s D4 race, but votes cast by people ages 18 to 24 dropped by 25% in 2023, according to Tim O’Neal, senior research analyst with the WA Community Alliance. 

• 2019: 2,055 votes cast by 18-24 year olds (7.1% of all D4 votes).
• 2023: 1,531 votes cast by 18-24 year olds (5.3% of all D4 votes).

Note that redistricting may have played a role, with D4 losing Eastlake but picking up more of Wedgwood in the new map approved last year. Nonetheless, there’s a case to be made that Davis would have won with 2019 levels of youth turnout — predicated on him winning about three-quarters of those extra votes.

Another factor at play: Scott’s more unabashedly progressive, revolutionary message both attracted and repelled: he ultimately lost to opponent Alex Pedersen by four percentage points, largely because Pedersen ran up the total so much in wealthier single family neighborhoods. But Scott’s fiery message may have helped him in the U District.

Preliminary election night results (visualized below courtesy of Jason Weill, with Davis precincts in blue and Rivera in orange) show abysmal turnout and some unexpected strength for Rivera on UW campus, but that may flip in late results as more late-voting progressive votes come in. Overall the race shifted 10 points from election night, just shy of the 11 points Davis needed to close the gap. Meanwhile, Scott’s final results map from 2019 shows nearly a clean sweep of the U District.

As Batres jokes, “I’ve definitely heard someone say, ‘If Shaun Scott’s yard signs looked less Soviet, he might have won.’ We’re looking at a district where you need to be able to pitch yourself as totally reasonable and practical, not a crusader, not a zealot. The youth sometimes need that energy to get really hyped up and involved. And Ron couldn’t afford to come off that way.”

“There was enough red-baiting already, can you imagine if he had actually said something like ‘defund the police’? The numbers would have been even further apart. Not that they’re very far apart now,” says Batres.

Even though Davis was careful to say he didn’t agree with the idea of defunding the police, Rivera’s campaign still branded him as a defund backer all the same, and stressed this message in mailers and debates. Davis made correcting the record the top fact-check on his webpage, but the message may have been drowned out as Rivera raised 2.2 times more money with the help of outside spending from political action committees. More than $135,000 in negative attack ads continued to carry the message that Davis supported defunding the police.

Torn between taking more radical positions to mobilize the youth vote and guarding against attacks of being “extremist,” progressive campaigns are left with two dicey options. 

The first is to reach out to student activists such as the UW Democrats, the Students for a Democratic Society, and Institutional Climate Action, as Davis did, in hopes they can win over the most engaged students. Such organizations tend to grill candidates on their leftist bona fides. Batres recalls organizations’ “purity tests,” such as criticizing Davis for the “Million Dollar Club” salesman award on his LinkedIn page.

Indeed, Students for a Democratic Society leader Yumiko Minamoto was cautious in her endorsement, noting the group’s goal of police abolition. “We thought that he was a step in the right direction,” says Minamoto. When compared with Rivera, “One can be reasoned with and the other one can’t.”

Still, Batres notes that Davis’ base of urbanists includes plenty of students, particularly those keenly interested in urban planning and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math).

The second option is to attempt to mobilize the unengaged populace, particularly among students and tenants that tend to sit out odd-year elections. That’s an uphill battle given widespread “disillusionment” and “apathy” towards politics, Minamoto says, especially during the Biden presidency. 

So what’s next? Barring a late miracle adding more ballots into the mix, Rivera will win the D4 race by about 240 votes when King County Elections finalizes results on November 28. While such a miracle is unlikely, the revelation of at least 85 ballots undelivered due to a malfunctioning mailbox in District 3 has kept hope alive in the Davis camp.

“It’s unclear if that was a one-off or not,” says Batres. As progressive campaigns urge voters to check that their ballots have been counted, Batres says the fight isn’t over yet.

“It’s not gonna reverse the trend we’ve seen across the city, but in some races as close as Ron’s, an extra 80 ballots could mean everything.”

If one broaches this subject with UW students, however, the response is likely to be, “What election?” For most students, with Thanksgiving break on the horizon, thoughts have turned away from politics and towards turkey.

The post Low Turnout among Young Voters May Have Swung D4 Council Race to Rivera first appeared on The Urbanist.

The election shifts power of council before a year with some momentous decisions in store, including a transportation levy renewal and a major update to the Seattle Comprehensive Plan due next year. Urbanists underperformed in Seattle City Council races, but made gains elsewhere in the state. We’ll discuss why progressive urbanists had a tough cycle in Seattle and what they might do to overcome the electoral challenges they face next time.

With Seattle City Council to be dominated by Harrell allies, voters will be expecting the mayor to follow through on promises of progress tackling the big issues facing the city. There’s no shortage of challenges — including a behind schedule Comprehensive Plan update, a looming budget shortfall mess, a stubbornly persistent homelessness crisis, growing public safety worries, bus service cuts, a streetcar in limbo, and a delayed light rail expansion program.

Our panelists are listed below. RSVP on our Eventbrite page.

Moderator:

Doug Trumm, Publisher of The Urbanist and Elections Committee Member.

Panelists:

• Jazmine Smith, Urbanist Elections Committee Member and Political Manager at The Washington Bus.
• Hannah Sabio-Howell, Urbanist Elections Committee Member and Communications Director at Working Washington.
• Rian Watt, Elections Committee Chair and Executive Director of The Urbanist.
• Ryan Packer, Elections Committee Member and Contributing Editor at The Urbanist.

The post Join The Urbanist for Post-Election Panel on November 29 first appeared on The Urbanist.

A few of those leads have crumbled since then, with two incumbents rebounding; first, Dan Strauss passed challenger Pete Hanning on Thursday, and then Tammy Morales passed Chinatown landlord Tanya Woo on Friday to take a 317-vote lead that has since grown to 398 votes on Monday. Strauss’s lead is up to 5 points.

The last remaining incumbent, Andrew Lewis, conceded on Friday to conservative challenger Bob Kettle, but the race has tightened considerably from the 12-point election night deficit, suggesting Lewis may have conceded a tad prematurely. Nonetheless, he does appear to be running out of runway. Lewis’s gap dwindled to 503 votes or 2.2 points on Friday, and it’s down to 465 on Monday.

King County Elections data shows that at least 368 ballots remain to be counted in D7. However, Lewis won only 55% of Monday’s drop, suggesting his late return momentum isn’t strong enough to make up the gap even if a few more ballots trickle in from the postal service.

In D4, at least 416 ballots remain to be counted, making a Ron Davis comeback mathematically possible, if somewhat improbable. Davis won 61% of Friday’s drop and 60% of Monday’s drop. He’ll need even greater margins to pull off the comeback.

As I noted Friday, Cathy Moore, Bob Kettle, Rob Saka, and Joy Hollingsworth will compose a new centrist majority on council aligned with Mayor Bruce Harrell and pledging to back his initiatives. The outcome of the late-breaking Rivera versus Davis race will determine if it’s a supermajority bloc.

The post Ron Davis Trims D4 Deficit to 303 Votes After Monday’s Drop first appeared on The Urbanist.

Today’s drop counted about 95,000 additional ballots countywide, bringing the total counted to 501,921. King County Elections reports that 513,968 ballots have been returned countywide, leaving at least 12,000 more to count, plus any more that are still yet to arrive from the postal service postmarked by the 8pm election day deadline. Challenged or invalidated ballots could trim that figure.

KC Elections spokesperson said they estimate about 5,000 ballots left to count in Seattle and more like 10K left across the county. This is going to come down to the wire in D4 and D7. Morales is likely to win D2 with a majority of late ballots breaking her way. https://t.co/24d1oGaZvn

— Josh Cohen (@jcohenwrites) November 11, 2023

Seattle’s D4 voters have returned 28,853 ballots, the county reports, with 28,140 counted thus far. So it appears at least 713 ballot remain to be counted in D4. Davis would have to win nearly 79% of those remaining ballots to pass Rivera, but it’s also possible a few more ballots will trickle in to give him a bit more room to work with. Davis’s deficit was 11 points on election night.

Morales gained six points in Thursday’s ballot drop to narrow her nine-point election night deficit to three points. She’s gained more than 10 points so far to take the lead. She appears to have enough margin to stay out of a recount.

Councilmember Andrew Lewis conceded to conservative challenger Bob Kettle today, but the race has tightened considerably from the 12-point election night deficit. Lewis is now 2.2 points back, but doesn’t appear to have sufficient ballots left to realistically make up the ground. King County Elections data show that at least 628 ballots remain to be counted. Lewis trails by 503 votes, so he’d need to take about 90% of remaining ballots to win — unless significantly more ballots are returned. That is a tall order, but he’s not mathematically eliminated yet.

Councilmember Dan Strauss now leads by a bit more comfortable 4.5 points in D6 after trailing by two points on election night.

Urbanist-backed progressives Alex Hudson and Maren Costa have also made progress today, but will ultimately come up short. Hudson is now down seven points after trailing by 17 on Tuesday. Costa is down nine points after trailing by 18 points on Tuesday. Social equity consultant ChrisTiana ObeySumner trails former county judge Cathy Moore by 29 points, an improvement over their 40-point deficit Tuesday, but still a poor showing.

Moore, Kettle, Rob Saka, and Joy Hollingsworth will compose a new centrist majority on council aligned with Mayor Bruce Harrell and pledging to back his initiatives. The outcome of the late-breaking Rivera versus Davis race will determine if it’s a supermajority bloc.

The post Morales Takes Lead, Davis Trims Gap to 1.5% After Friday Drop first appeared on The Urbanist.

Late ballot returns lean progressive and this year is no different, with Seattle City Councilmember Tammy Morales gaining six points in Thursday’s ballot drop to narrow her nine-point election night deficit. Now down just three points, she appears likely to pass centrist challenger Tanya Woo and prevail if the trendline holds.

Meanwhile, Councilmember Dan Strauss has already closed his gap to take a lead after trailing by two points on election night. He’s now up nearly one point over opponent Pete Hanning, who is executive director of the Fremont Chamber of Commerce.

Andrew Lewis is the incumbent councilmember with the toughest row to hoe. He trailed by 12 points on election night and has trimmed the gap to seven points. He’ll need to pick up the pace if he hopes to pass conservative challenger Bob Kettle, a Queen Anne Community Council leader with a history of opposing housing development.

King County has 100,000+ ballots still to count. If Davis and Lewis only gain another five points in the remaining drop, it won't be enough. If they grab a bigger share in future drops than they did today, they just might. #waelex pic.twitter.com/hnItzW1Fuz

— The Urbanist (@UrbanistOrg) November 10, 2023

The four other races without an incumbent still favor the more conservative candidates; however in D4, Urbanist-endorsed Ron Davis has closed the gap to six points, after trailing by 11 points on election night. It is conceivable that he could catch opponent Maritza Rivera, who was tapped by then-Mayor Jenny Durkan to be deputy director of the Office of Arts and Culture.

Centrists Rob Saka (D1), Joy Hollingsworth (D3), and Cathy Moore (D5) continue to hold large, almost certainly insurmountable leads even if the margin has slipped a bit.

If Strauss holds on and Morales, Lewis, and Davis all manage to comeback, what looked like an election night drubbing for The Urbanist slate could turn into a narrow victory for the majority of candidates. However, Lewis and Davis could rightfully be considered underdogs at this point given ballot trends.

King County Elections reports 505,400 ballots have been returned across the county and 406,137 have been counted as of Thursday. That leaves another approximately 100,000 to count. County election officials counted about 282,000 ballots on election night, another 20,000 or so on Wednesday, and about 100,000 on Thursday.

With Morales seeing a six-point swing so far, she appears set to pass Woo. However, with Lewis and Davis seeing a five-point swing so far, they’ll need either a higher turnout than currently projected or to win a greater share of remaining ballots (or both) to close their respective gaps. A few ballots could still be in the mail, but the universe of ballots should be pretty clear by Monday. Due to Veteran’s Day, there will not be a ballot count on Friday. Correction: There is still a ballot drop Friday.

As noted in our Wednesday coverage, progressives and urbanists had a stronger night elsewhere in the region, with The Urbanist slate sweeping four King County Council races, two Bellevue City Council races, and several leaders endorsed by allied organizations doing well in places like Bothell, Kirkland, Redmond, and Bremerton. Tacoma’s tenant protections measure put forward by the local branch of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is also set to pass.

In Tacoma @TacomaDSA-endorsed Measure 1 for a tenant bill of rights could pull ahead, DSA-endorsed candidate Jamika Scott is on track to join the city council, and progressive organizer Olgy Diaz could pull ahead of the police-guild candidate, Kristen Wynne. pic.twitter.com/rJP8lvujw2

— Kamau (@Kamaumaumau) November 8, 2023

And even the bad night in Seattle might be flipped if the late progressive rally continues. Will Morales complete the comeback as projected and will Davis and Lewis pick up the pace to join her? Stay tuned. It’s not over yet.

This article was updated at 2pm Friday to note that King County Elections will release a ballot drop on Friday even with Veteran’s Day observances.

The post Strauss, Morales, Lewis, and Davis Surge in Thursday Ballot Drop first appeared on The Urbanist.

Initial election night results — when roughly half of total expected ballots are typically counted — led to some groans among progressive onlookers on Tuesday night. The centrist slate had taken some seemingly unassailable leads in several races. In Tuesday’s ballot drop, Cathy Moore was up 40 points, Rob Saka was up 18 points, Joy Hollingsworth was up 17 points to pace the centrist side.

While trailing by two points on election night, District 6 incumbent Dan Strauss was in position to likely pass Pete Hanning in subsequent drops, which tend to lean progressive compared to the first drop. However, the other incumbents are in for nailbiters at best, with D2’s Tammy Morales down nine points and Andrew Lewis trailing by 12 points in D7 on Tuesday.

Wednesday drop was relatively small, with King County adding about 20,000 ballot countywide, which officials blamed on a three-hour office evacuation necessitated by an anthrax scare that turned out to be false alarm.

Following Wednesday’s drop, most progressives had gained slightly. Strauss had pulled within a point, putting him well on course to surpass Hanning based on the trend. Hudson has trimmed two points off Hollingsworth’s lead, but still had a tall task before her. The Urbanist-endorsed candidate is indicated in bold below with their vote share as of Wednesday.

1. Rob Saka 58.5% to Maren Costa 40.9%
2. Tanya Woo 54.1% to Tammy Morales 45.5%
3. Joy Hollingworth 57.2% to Alex Hudson 42.4%
4. Maritza Rivera 55% to Ron Davis 44.6%
5. Cathy Moore 69.8% to ChrisTiana ObeySumner 29.8%
6. Pete Hanning 50.2% to Dan Strauss 49.3%
7. Bob Kettle 55.5% to Andrew Lewis 44.1%

The largest swing from election night to final results that a candidate has seen in recent memory is Kshama Sawant’s 13-point swing in 2019, which propelled her to victory. D4 candidate Shaun Scott also pulled off a 12-point swing that cycle, but it wasn’t enough given a larger election night gap. If progressive candidates were to replicate Sawant’s 13-point comeback this cycle, that would mean Morales, Davis, and Lewis could all win.

However, it’s also possible 2019 was unique, given the huge Amazon money bomb that seemed to galvanize the progressive vote — or that such swings are dependent on a robust get-out-the-vote operation akin to the one that Sawant’s Socialist Alternative party marshals in her races. It’s unclear if the same late-breaking progressive momentum will materialize this time around. Time will tell.

It’s too early to call races within the Sawant margin, but even if a few impressive comebacks materialize, it would still amount to a solid election for centrists.

Mayor Bruce Harrell endorsed Saka, Woo, Hollingsworth, Rivera, Moore, and Strauss, and it’s possible his endorsees will run the table. Harrell didn’t endorse in D7, but most of his political allies went with Kettle. Harrell’s faith to triple the size of the Seattle Housing Levy was also rewarded with a resounding 66% mark on election night.

Harrell’s endorsements mostly aligned with the Seattle Times’ endorsements, except that he endorsed Strauss and sat out D7 and the Times backed Hanning and Kettle. The Stranger’s general endorsements were the same as The Urbanist’s, although the primary did see a split in D5 with The Urbanist Elections Committee backing third-place finisher Nilu Jenks and The Stranger backing ObeySumner, boosting them through the primary.

With Seattle City Council likely to be dominated by Harrell allies, old habits of blaming council for inaction on key policy issues will ring less true than it ever has. Voters will be expecting him and his allies to follow through on promises of working together to tackle big issues. That resolve will face no shortage of challenges — including a behind schedule Comprehensive Plan update, a looming budget shortfall mess, a stubbornly persistent homelessness crisis, growing public safety worries, bus service cuts, and a delayed light rail expansion program.

Progressive shift on King County Council

Elsewhere in the region, results were not as dour for progressives and urbanist-aligned candidates. King County Council saw Urbanist-endorsed candidates sweep with Jorge Barón and Teresa Mosqueda joining returning incumbents Girmay Zahilay and Claudia Balducci for arguably the most progressive County Council ever.

The changing of guard could give the body the gumption to boost funding for King County Metro, potentially via a countywide transportation benefit district. The County Council shelved an earlier transit measure proposal amidst the pandemic outbreak, and it has stayed shelved ever since.

City Council wins elsewhere

In Bellevue, Urbanist-endorsed Mo Malakoutian and Janice Zahn both won their City Council races, as did incumbent John Stokes, who faced a conservative. Malakoutian will replace Jeremy Barksdale, keeping the seat on the more progressive-leaning side.

Bothell Mayor Mason Thompson is on course to win reelection easily and he’ll have reinforcement from incoming councilmembers Carston Curd and Amanda Dodd. All of them are pulling 60% of the vote or more. Thompson has been an outspoken advocate for adding missing middle housing and safe facilities for walking, rolling, and biking. With a friendlier Council, big things could be in store for Bothell.

Kirkland is also going with the more urbanist candidates who have argued for safe streets projects and more housing options. Amy Falcone is up huge, Kelli Curtis is up big, and John Tymczyszyn is up a few points. All had the endorsement of the Transit Riders Union and Washington Bikes.

The Washington Bikes slate also swept in Redmond, with Mayor Angela Birney and council candidate Osman Salahuddin coasting to victory and Angie Nuevacamina looking like she has the edge. Incumbent Councilmembers Jessica Forsythe and Vanessa Kritzer are running unopposed.

Transportation advocate Joe Vinson is leading big in his SeaTac City Council race. Progressive-leaning incumbent Senayet Negusse also appears to have survived a challenge, although the race is close.

Edmonds was a mixed bag, with Councilmember Susan Paine on course to win in early results, but a challenge from the right taking down Mayor Mike Nelson. Washington Bikes endorsed Paine, Chris Eck, and Mackey Guenther for Edmonds City Council. Eck is also winning, but Guenther is trailing by a wide margin.

The Washington Bikes slate swept in Bremerton with Denise Frey, Jane Rebelowski, and Anna Mockler all with significant leads in early results. Bremerton has seen bicycling and safe streets issues bubbling to the surface with efforts to improve local streets. Bike-friendly council reinforcements could give a boost to long saga of redesigning crash-prone 6th Street and other safety projects.

The post Centrists Off to Fast Start in Seattle Election Results first appeared on The Urbanist.

Control of the Seattle City Council is on the line and wealthy and powerful special interests are not going to let a good opportunity to tip the scales pass them by. At the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission’s last count, independent expenditures had reached $1,421,913 across the seven Seattle council races, with the vast majority being spent to support the more conservative candidates — in other words, the candidates that didn’t win The Urbanist endorsement.

The Urbanist endorsed the following slate on the strength of their vision for housing, safety, and climate action:

• Seattle City Council District 1 – Maren Costa
• Seattle City Council District 2 – Tammy Morales
• Seattle City Council District 3 – Alex Hudson
• Seattle City Council District 4 – Ron Davis
• Seattle City Council District 5 – ChrisTiana ObeySumner
• Seattle City Council District 6 – Dan Strauss
• Seattle City Council District 7 – Andrew Lewis

Meanwhile The Seattle Times, which typically defines the centrist lane, went with a completely different slate, endorsing Rob Saka, Tanya Woo, Joy Hollingsworth, Maritza Rivera, Cathy Moore, Pete Hanning, and Bob Kettle, respectively. The money has poured in to support this more corporate-friendly slate, which is also generally more hesitant to add denser housing in single-family neighborhoods — a perennial pet issue of The Seattle Times editorial board.

Collectively, the money has nearly added up to the $1.5 million money bomb that Amazon dropped in 2019, which pundits declared a dud that backfired by firing up the progressive vote. This time around, centrist boosters have taken pains to launder their cash between different committees for each race, and no one donor has contributed as large of a sum of money. Each committee gets a wholesome sounding name with “Neighbors” at the end even though much of the money is from elites, often from outside the district.

“They’ve apparently learned from that 2019 PR blunder,” Hannah Krieg noted in The Stranger. “The Chamber swore off fundraising when the new CEO took over in 2020, but now the same rich donors who previously dumped their cash into the Chamber’s IE have spread almost $1 million across six IEs branded as ‘[Insert Seattle area here] Neighbors,’ attempting to put a friendly face on Trumpers, real estate tycoons, giant corporations, and wealth-hoarding billionaires. Labor even added its worker money to the corporate pile in a couple races.”

The biggest campaign contributor this cycle is the realtor lobby: “The National Association of Realtors has also taken an interest in Seattle elections, spending $225,781 in support of Woo, Hollingsworth, Rivera and Kettle,” Crosscut‘s Josh Cohen wrote. Real estate mogul George Petrie, Seattle’s leading Trump donor in 2021, is another major donor, spreading $25,000 across four races, supporting Saka, Rivera, Moore, and Kettle.

Local celebrities have also gotten into the mix, with Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic donating in support of Woo and Hollingworth. It appears that one of the fathers of grunge wants Seattle to embrace a squeakier, cleaner image.

What did all this wealthy donor cash pay for? You’ve probably seen the mailers and ads. Some of the campaign literature is so deceptive that it has earned censure from local Democratic groups.

Thankful to see the Democratic Party continuing to call on my opponent to cease deceptive campaigning. I can't believe the deluge of misinformation finding its way into my neighbors' mailboxes.

The cancer of gaslighting is trying to infect even our own party. Stay strong Dems! https://t.co/Gy9MwHfci7

— Ron Davis for Seattle (@seattle4ron) November 2, 2023

Many of the campaigns went negative, deceptively claiming the opponents of the centrist slate would stand in the way of Seattle hiring 1,400 cops. The main thing standing in the way is simple math, that the Seattle Police Department hasn’t been able to recruit faster than it is losing people, even with generous hiring bonuses and coddling from the mayor. The national shortage of police officers and the bad reputation and low favorability ratings that the Seattle Police Department have earned hasn’t helped either.

Nonetheless, ads trying to resurrect the defund narrative have targeted several candidates, particularly Black progressive candidate ObeySumner — a similar tactic they used against Nikkita Oliver in 2021.

Hey, look y'all! New IE attack ads just dropped. It's a full 8.5×12 sheet

This is comical pic.twitter.com/j8KRpeYcvH

— ChrisTiana ObeySumner (@CObeySumner) November 4, 2023

Progressives don’t have the same war chest or arsenal to respond. Union campaign spending is down this cycle, running at about a third of the big spending labor marshaled in 2021, largely in support of mayoral candidate Lorena González. Even where labor is spending, some investments are going to back the centrist Seattle Times candidate, such as in D3 and D5, where MLK Labor Council has endorsed Hollingsworth and Moore.

All in all, the best antidote progressive urbanists have is to organize and mobilize by voting, telling your friends to vote, and helping with a door knock or phone bank. Last-minute progressive surges have carried the day before, and they can again.

The post Campaign Cash Pours In for Centrist Seattle Candidates first appeared on The Urbanist.

As Seattle City Council candidates take swings and try to rally in the closing week, urbanists of all brands can feel some relief knowing that the resident advocate of slow-growth and “neighborhood character,” Councilmember Alex Pedersen, will soon be out of office. At a time when Seattle has regained its title as the fastest growing American city, and needs 120,000 new housing units today just to meet current demand, we need visionary leadership on the City Council to challenge the status quo and build more (way more) housing. While the City Council finalists differ on exactly how to increase housing supply, the debate has been far more favorable for the pro-density crowd this election cycle. 

Perhaps that is because recent polling has found overwhelming support for increased housing density, making it less acceptable to be anti-density. Despite the strong support amongst future constituents, there are bright red flags for one of the candidates, Bob Kettle, that are deeply concerning for the urbanist housing vision of a district that needs a major jump start to recover from the racist history of redlining.

Kettle’s campaign has not focused on his past anti-housing advocacy. Instead, he has almost exclusively promoted a vision of a carceral and police-centric approach to homelessness and addiction, downplaying the issue of housing and land use and declining to even debate the issue. Kettle was the only candidate out of all 14 in the general election to decline an invitation to participate in a forum on the Comprehensive Plan hosted by The Urbanist, Real Change, and the Housing Development Consortium, among others.

Kettle was also one of only three candidates to decline to make themselves available for an interview with Real Change and answer questions directly from vendors, most of whom have experienced homelessness themselves. It is deeply troubling for someone to refuse to engage with key community members on the biggest crisis facing us and the process that will either set the stage for decades or set us back decades. 

The rare occasions where Kettle has answered questions about land use have not been reassuring. In an interview with PubliCola’s Erica C. Barnett, Kettle engaged in revisionist history of the well-documented delay of the Queen Anne Community Council on nearly every significant density fight of the last 20 years.

“The Queen Anne Community Council and the Queen Anne community, we’ve always been for densification,” Kettle told Publicola, which is shocking to hear after years on said council — trying to advocate for densification has been an uphill battle for me. 

A basic Google search reveals the litigation efforts of the Queen Anne Community Council to block the modest move to allow broader construction of accessory dwelling units, better known as backyard cottages. This action was actually part of the catalyst for me to join the council in hopes of diversifying opinions. The Queen Anne Community Council was the only named plaintiff in that lawsuit, and while they were unsuccessful, their efforts delayed implementation of a pro-housing policy for months.

It also ignores the Queen Anne Community Council’s support for several years of delay of 323 new homes above the Queen Anne Safeway for reasons as trite as the color tone of bricks, the aesthetic benefits of a parking lot, and concerns that the height (read, additional housing) of the building would diminish the “neighborhood character.” In his interview with Erica C. Barnett, Kettle described the Safeway project as “a perfect example… of the community and a developer working together…”

In actuality, Kettle spoke in opposition to the project during a 2018 community meeting arguing the housing would pose a safety threat for children and arguing 75 feet is too high a height for a building in an urban village. A recent photo posted on social media shows Kettle at a community meeting, pictured with former Land Use Review Committee Chair and Kettle donor, Marty Kaplan, pushing back on the plans to build more housing in Queen Anne.

At a time like this we cannot afford to have anyone on the Council that won’t support the housing we desperately need, including Bob Kettle. Housing supply is badly constrained because of bad laws and racist zoning. The Comprehensive Plan next year gives us the opportunity to reshape our housing policy to allow more density, make room for social housing, relieve pressure from the few urban areas of the city where growth has traditionally been allowed, and to undo a century’s worth of exclusionary housing policies. These major changes only occur every decade or so, which is an excruciatingly long time to wait if we get it wrong.

And don’t for a second think one Not In My Backyard (NIMBY) activist can’t do significant damage on a Council with a pro-housing YIMBY majority. Councilmember Alex Pedersen has single-handedly used his control of the transportation committee to raid transit funding for his pet projects, pressure the Seattle Department of Transportation to pull the plug on planned bike lanes, and doggedly rail against the Center City Connector. When a chair controls what is, and isn’t, on an agenda it makes a big difference. If elected, freshman Kettle could chair the land use committee. A frightening thought. 

At the end of the day, the stakes for the next Comprehensive Plan are huge. It will determine if you get to live here, if we will meaningfully do our part to fight climate change, and if you can walk or bike to a basic local amenity, like a grocery store. Do we really want someone in charge of that process who thinks more housing makes a neighborhood unsafe for children? Or, that going up to 75 feet in an urban village is too high? We need leaders who think that is not enough!

Bob Kettle has a concerning track record on housing and land use, especially for someone seeking to represent the fastest growing district in Seattle. At this time, and in this place, someone holding those values puts an equitable and sustainable future for our city at risk. We can’t let that happen. We need people aligned with our values that will take action to build communities that support us all, not someone touting revisionist history and fear mongering. Vote!

Jazmine Smith is a member of The Urbanist Elections Committee, which endorsed Andrew Lewis in D7, and she is a D7 resident.

The post The Next Pedersen? Bob Kettle’s Anti-Housing Red Flags Raise Alarm first appeared on The Urbanist.