With the candidate filing deadline only days away — and the first legitimate candidate forum now under their belts –the field appears set for the Seattle City Council election in District 3. With these candidates, the 2023 D3 campaign seems less likely to be a race and political battle and more likely to be a conversation about how best to represent the neighborhoods around Capitol Hill and the Central District at Seattle City Hall.

“I have seen how different communities particularly historically excluded communities have been falling through the gaps of our policies throughout our entire city,” candidate Joy Hollingsworth told the crowd at last week’s MLK Labor Council D3 candidates forum. “I’m just a person that has certain type of values that wants to be able to unify our voices and amplify voices as well the fight for community.”

The first to announce and the frontrunner so far in campaign donations, the Central District resident and cannabis entrepreneur could easily be speaking for any of her competitors. If the May 9th forum is any indication, there will be few stark divides in the race to determine the top two candidates in August followed by the final election in November.

The 2023 election will be a big change from the last D3 battle when Kshama Sawant was defending her seat against a chamber of commerce-backed candidate. Egan Orion would eventually say Amazon and business-backed cash cost him the race. Along the way, the candidates traded jabs and lobbed incendiary accusations.

In 2023’s race, Sawant is shaping up to be a footnote after her announcement in January that she would not seek reelection to focus her Socialist Alternative group’s efforts on the formation of a new national effort.

Meanwhile, the organizers who failed to remove Seattle’s longest serving member of the council in a 2021 recall battle have not reemerged now that Sawant is stepping away. There is no Recall Sawant candidate who has yet joined the race and none of the registered candidates have told CHS they supported the effort to have Sawant removed.

With King County Elections opening filing Monday, nine candidates have so far said they were running for the D3 seat. Not everybody is running a well-oiled machine at this early point. Only five candidates took part in the MLK Labor forum. Judkins Park and cannabis community leader Alex Cooley said they hadn’t been invited to the event. We haven’t heard back from others like Capitol Hill resident Shobhit Agarwal. A tenth, “public safety” candidate Theo Mostert, has dropped out. They have until Friday to formalize the campaigns.

UPDATE: Agarwal says that his campaign had not been notified of the event and that organizers informed later that it had been limited to five invitees. Agarwal says he does plan to take part in the Immigrants, Refugees and Communities of Color coalition candidates forum this week. Cooley, meanwhile, followed up about his lack of an invite. “I was out knocking doors on 23rd instead,” Cooley said.

ELECTION 2023 — CHS COVERAGE

• • SHOBHIT AGARWAL: In a crowded field, latest District 3 candidate taking building by building approach
  • RY ARMSTRONG: The race for District 3 had to have a Democracy Voucher candidate — Ry Armstrong just might be it
  • ANDREW ASHIOFU: As D3 candidate field crowds, Ashiofu hopes unique perspectives on housing, health, and transit will change the race
  • ALEX COOLEY: ‘Like, the beauty of democracy’ — Judkins Park and cannabis community leader joins ‘conversation’ for District 3 seat on the Seattle City Council
  • BOBBY GOODWIN: Bobby Goodwin, a public defender who wants cops to work harder and the streets of Seattle to be safer, wants your District 3 vote
  • JOY HOLLINGSWORTH: With ‘cannabis justice,’ hunger advocacy, and three generations in the Central District, Hollingsworth enters race for District 3 — UPDATE
  • EFRAIN HUDNELL: This District 3 candidate wants to use affordable housing to help save Seattle from a ‘death spiral that we’ve seen in cities that have gone boom to bust in a way that only American cities do’
  • ALEX HUDSON: With her heart on First Hill, Hudson joins race for District 3 with a neighborhood approach to urbanist policy
  • More…

What do the remaining candidates support? If the MLK Labor session is any indication, be prepared to hear similar messages on supporting increased affordable housing, efforts to slow gentrification and displacement, a less radical approach to changing Seattle Police, and calls for more services to address homelessness, addiction, and mental illness.

Housing “is not a privilege. It’s a human right,” candidate and Washington State Stonewall Democrats chair Andrew Ashiofu told the MLK Labor crowd. “Housing First is my policy but also is what we’ve seen especially in Capitol Hill, that the people that provide services for us, even the small organizations are not supported well in the cities. They’ve been pushed out which has an impact. We need to push for affordability, accessibility, availability of housing.”

Those ideals weren’t going to find an argument at the table of D3 candidates.

There are some areas to drill in on. In the forum’s format, the session began with a series of limited YES/NO questions. One of those asked the attending candidates if it had been a mistake for the Seattle City Council to pledge to “defund the Seattle Police Department by 50%” during the 2020 protests. Three candidates including the top three so far in reported financial contributions Hollingsworth, Ashiofu, and transit advocate and First Hill community leader Alex Hudson each held up their green YES cards. The finer points of the politically loaded question will be worth following up on with each. UPDATE: Ashiofu points out that he changed his card to NO after the question was repeated and clarified.

As for Hudson, the candidate’s closing statement also seemed to be something you might hear the still fresh-faced D3 candidates trying to say.

“I am tenacious, I am courageous. And I’m down to this fight,” Hudson said. “And if you’re lucky, we will build a city where everyone has a place to live, where people can rest, young people have opportunity, and everyone’s paying their mortgage for a hard day’s work.”

Just how friendly is the D3 race going to be? Actor and candidate Ry Armstrong used some of the microphone time last week to make a fundraising pitch — for another candidate. Armstrong asked the crowd to pitch in to county deputy prosecutor Efrain Hudnell’s quest to qualify for the city’s Democracy Voucher program.

“Please support the democratic process and donate to Efrain’s campaign,” Armstrong said.

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