The final major debate of Seattle’s 2021 election takes place Thursday night as candidates Lorena González and Bruce Harrell will face off in a forum carried across local television and radio, and streamed live online.
Thursday’s event is the second from Seattle CityClub and the Washington State Debate Coalition and is intended to focus on public health and safety. The first session two weeks ago is embedded below.
That focus could be a challenge as the final week of campaigning has been focused on attack ads after González was forced to pull her advertisement criticizing Harrell’s defense of former Mayor Ed Murray before Murray resigned in a sex abuse scandal.
Mayoral Debate with Lorena Gonzalez (Democrat) and Bruce Harrell (Democrat)
- Thursday, October 28, 2021
- 7 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Essex Porter (KIRO 7) is set to host the second debate joined by David Kroman (Crosscut), Hana Kim (FOX 13), and Hanna Scott (KIRO Radio).
Where can I watch?
The following premier media partners will air the mayoral debate live:
- FOX 13+ – cable 10, ch. 22 over-the-air
- KING 5 – KONG channel 6/16
- KIRO – channel 7
- Seattle Channel – channel 21
- TVW – https://www.tvw.org/about/channel-locator/
- KIRO Radio – 97.3 FM
- KOMO News – 97.7 FM
- KUOW Public Radio – 94.9 FM
The debates will also be streamed live on the following media outlets:
Thursday’s final debate comes after many voters have already made up their mind and, under Washington’s all-mail system, cast a ballot in the race to replace outgoing, one-term Mayor Jenny Durkan.
The latest reports from King County Elections shows Seattle at about 16% of ballots returned meaning more than 76,000 voters have already weighed in. In 2017 in the last mayoral election, the city produced a 50% turnout. Just under 170,000 of you still need to get your ballot in.
Ballots must be postmarked or dropped at collection boxes by Tuesday, November 2nd at 8 PM.
Meanwhile, for District 3 voters, the politics will not end with November 2nd and the ongoing tabulation of the General Election results. Immediately following the General Election, expect the fight over Kshama Sawant’s council seat to flare up with special election ballots going out later in the month for a December 7th special recall vote only for District 3 citizens.
CHS Election 2021: Full Coverage
- ‘Fare free’ rides, Capitol Hill Super Block, and kayaks: How council candidates come down on streets and transit
- Oliver and Nelson square off in Position 9 debate: ‘Public safety’ vs. ‘law and order,’ how a police abolitionist can keep the city safe, and ‘root causes’ vs. ‘rhetoric and the idealogical bent’
- Seattle Pride gives highest ‘4 flag’ ratings to González, Mosqueda, and Oliver
- The Mayor of Capitol Hill: Streets and Transit
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This is an easy choice. Bruce Harrell is a local boy that will represent all of Seattle and has signaled a change in approach from Seattle’s massive failure to address the homelessness crisis. Lorena just virtue signals to her ideological base and promotes idiotic policies (come camp in our parks! Stealing is fine if you are poor!) that attract homeless drug addicts to migrate here. At least 60% of our rough sleepers moved here homeless. At least 80% have drug addiction issues. We will never solve this crisis and lift people out of the margins if we continue to elect leaders like Lorena that deny reality.
I don’t necessarily disagree with your assessment of Gonzalez. But what accomplishments in Harrell’s eight years on the city council lead you to believe he would be any better? They both seem equally ineffective to me, but I’m genuinely curious.
Wow, listen to this Angry Boomer Who’d Like The Homeless To Lay Down In The Gutter And Die.
I love the “Cosmopolitan Conservatives” you see here in Seattle: just as reactionary, just as classist, just as racist and just awful as conservatives everywhere, but always and forever looking to distance themselves from the neofascist reactionary conservatives elsewhere.
Your views, PN, are, by the way, repugnant.
Also, Harrell is **nothing but a shill for corporate interests** and should not be voted into office.
The attitude that votes for Harrell is the same that voted in the **awful** Jenny Durkan.
And let’s be clear who Durkan really is: she is a carpetbagging former federal prosecutor with no legitimate claim to govern this city. What the **hell** gives these prosecutors whose only connection to a city like Seattle is that they happened to be posted to the Western District Court House, which just so happens to be located in Seattle proper, to think they are **entitled** to run this city?
Gross. Durkan was a mistake. Harrell is a bigger mistake. These aging Boomer conservatives like PN should not be listened to in any way, shape, or form.
Also PN: your views are absolutely repugnant.
Pee Dee, Isn’t a carpetbagger one who has no connection to the locale they are trying to exploit? Jennie Durkan is from the Seattle area. How then does she qualify as a carpetbagger? And your characterization of “boomers” is frankly, repugnant.
Wow, you don’t even know the age of Park Neighbor but lash out in an ageist rant. You love to hear how evolved you are but fail to address the substance of the note you rant about, the claimed reality that s/he believes Lorena ignores. You may find Park Neighbor’s views repugnant. But I find your response puerile.
Er…. Jenny Durkan was ‘entitled’ to run this city because a majority of the voters who cast ballots in her election voted for her….
Kind of hard to call her a carpetbagger, as she was born in Seattle and grew up locally.
Not a boomer. Not a conservative. Also not a racist like you voting for Lorena Gonzalez. Just one of the 51% of Seattle residents that think the delusional Seattle leftist crap has gotten out control and needs to be checked with this election.
Harrell supports big development responsible for the racist concept of gentrification in his decade on council. Harrell was on council for years and did jack.
You’re right. Why don’t we mark certain areas as only being allowed for certain people, either by race or by income level. I don’t think that has ever happened in history.
Voting for Harrell! Not a boomer, not rich, and not white, either.
Appreciate the passion, but please don’t forget to Be Best.
@PeeDee:
I’m planning to vote for Gonzalez, like you. So maybe you’ll listen to me when I say that your post is an embarrassment and hurts your own cause.
Why is Jenny Durkan entitled to be mayor of Seattle? Because she was voted into office by a majority of Seattlites. Full stop.
You call her a carpet bagger. Not only was she born in Seattle, she is the FIRST PERSON in Seattle’s entire 150-year history who was born here and was voted in as mayor. Literally, the first ever. (Braman, Harrell, and Burgess were all born in Seattle and served as mayor after someone else resigned, but were not elected).
Making assumptions about someone’s demographics based on their beliefs just shows your ignorance. Using ageist tropes is repugnant.
Calling Harrell “nothing but a shill for corporate interests” show that you think that the complexities of politics can be boiled down into one-dimensional soundbites. It makes you look foolish.
Please stop. All you do is make your preferred candidate look bad by association.
Steve
(PS To anyone gearing up to tell me that I shouldn’t vote for Gonzalez based on their view that she also simplifies politics, etc — I assure you I am deeply embedded in local politics, and I know the candidates’ platforms and records very well, and there are some things I prefer about each candidate, and neither is my ideal, but based on some of the ideas I hold most strongly about housing affordability and urban policy, Gonzalez wins).
Sorry, correction: it was Braman’s replacement (Miller) who was born in Seattle, and became mayor when Braman was appointed by Nixon to be US Assistant Secretary of Transportation.
Bruce Harrell has openly stated that the private sector should and will solve the homeless crisis, neverminding that the private sector has done very little, while Seattle and King County have actually been making progress over the past years.
Vote how you want, but if you vote for Harrell thinking he’s going to do anything but make the homeless crisis worse, then you are nothing short of delusional.
Also, slinging false narratives about Gonzales to shill for your candidate only makes you look even more foolish.
At least 80% of what you typed is made up of rando stats. At least 90% of this post can be found verbatim on Facebook and NextDoor and in Seattle Times comments.
At least 85% of the homeless issues are due to inactivity while Bruce Harrell was on the council. Almost 35% of Kshama Sawant would’ve taken credit for whatever he could’ve accomplished and elected not to.
The pendulum is swinging back toward sanity. I suspect Seattle will follow the direction of New York by electing the best candidate to lead rather then the status quo magical-thinking, smoke-blowing performative progressives that have driven the city into a ditch.
You sensationalists are something else.
Voting Lorena! Harrell is a long time Durkan type who spent a decade in City Council and created the problems we now have to fix. Easy choice here, go Lorena!
I agree Harrell is underwhelming, but at least he’s an authentic local and likable guy. He isn’t totally obsessed with pretending to be woke like Gonzalez. Vote for wokester Gonzalez if you like condemning drug addicts to slow death in our parks, streets and green belts and growing our bloated ineffective city government.
Vote for wokester Gonzalez if you like condemning drug addicts to slow death in our parks, streets and green belts and growing our bloated ineffective city government
You realize Harrell’s proposal is “let the free market take care of it”, right? Curious how you think that won’t end up with a rise in people experiencing homelessness. Does Dori give you the talking points for that?
Lorena all the way!!
Lorena with the Willy Horton ad? So racist.