As ballots are being sent to voters this week for the upcoming August 5th Primary Election, the races for the Seattle mayor’s office appears to be coming down to what order the two leading candidates in the political battle will finish.
Challenger Katie Wilson seems to have a top-two result all but wrapped up.
“This woman is so smart, she’s kicked my ass so many times in so many debates,” repeat mayoral candidate Joe Mallahan said Tuesday night during a candidates forum focused on District 3 issues organized by the Leschi Community Council, the Central Area Neighborhood District Council, and the Coalition of Immigrants Refugees and Communities of Color.
Mallahan’s admission — he’s currently running third in fundraising in the race with $122,000 in campaign contributions plus another $15,000 from an independent expenditure committee — made it pretty clear he knows Wilson is going through to November’s General Election.
Wilson and incumbent Bruce Harrell’s campaigns have both reported raising around $450,000 each. Harrell is also backed by a $200,000 “Bruce Harrell 4 SeattlesFuture” independent expenditure committee.
“We have great values here in Seattle but we often fail to live up to them,” Wilson said Tuesday night in her pitch to the crowd inside Leschi’s Grace United Methodist Church as she positioned her leadership as a collaborative and active effort to push beyond current City Hall leadership’s moderate leanings. Wilson promised an administration that would be more aggressive in galvanizing the city against federal cutbacks and attacks on DEI programs. She said she would back efforts to civilianize more of the work currently saddling the Seattle Police Department, expand alternative responses like the CARE crisis responders, and fix the city’s “broken” police accountability system. And she said she would lead in unity with the city’s community organizations and labor unions — “I’m a believer in the power of organization,” Wilson said.
The progressive organizer who is the executive directors of the Transit Riders Union and helped lead minimum wage and renter rights campaigns around the region won the endorsement of the 43rd District Democrats last month.
Tuesday night, Harrell “had another appointment and couldn’t move his schedule,” forum organizers told the crowd. In 2021’s primary, voters in Leschi and this area of the city were strong supporters of the Central District born and raised candidate.
Harrell’s absence might have been to his advantage. The mayor did not have to respond to the role former T-Mobile executive Mallahan has settled into of Harrell basher with hopes of somehow henpecking the incumbent into third place and out of the race. “I believe the city of Seattle is badly mismanaged,” the repeat mayoral candidate said during one of his times at the microphone, calling Harrell a “disrespectful, vindictive, finger-pointer of a mayor.”
You can watch the full candidates forum here.
Ballots will begin arriving this week for the August 5th vote.
Find all CHS Elections coverage here.
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Send those democracy vouchers to Katie!
Our experience with an inexperienced activist in District 3 was highly problematic. Not sure I want to risk having a similar individual as our mayor.
I see someone is getting (and actually believing) Bruce Harrell’s attack emails trying to say Katie Wilson is the same person as Kshama Sawant.
Our experience with Bruce Harrell as mayor and almost a decade on City Council (supposedly experienced) has been watering down of road safety initiatives to placate his rich waterfront constituents, watering down of zoning changes to placate other well off constituents while housing becomes unaffordable for most Seattlites, taking money allocated for affordable housing to plug budget holes (protecting rich corporations from paying their fair share in taxes), absolutely zero progress on reducing homelessness other than sweeping people from one location to another, and a general climate of misogyny, fear and vindictiveness throughout city government. So, yeah, I’ll support the candidate that hasn’t held office, but has a long history of advocating for and getting results on transportation, housing and fair wages. Getting Bruce out of office and back to Bellevue should be this city’s top priority.
It’s challenging not to compare two seemingly similar individuals, especially since Wilson endorsed Sawant.
I’d much prefer extensive city council experience over a do-gooder activist type whom despite grand rhetoric, provides scant details on their platform.
Let’s not extend our District 3 nightmare onto to the entire city.
So, your logic is that District 3 has become a nightmare, and even though Bruce Harrell was on City Council for 12 years, and has been mayor for 3 1/2 years, and has only seen increasing power over the time period that you have seen District 3 turn into a nightmare, and has apparently not been able to stop that from happening, you still want to continue with keeping Bruce Harrell in charge?
I don’t think you know anything about the true meaning of Hot Rat Summer.
If Capitol Hill has become a “nightmare” (hyperbole much?), then it is not Bruce Harrell who is to blame. It is the leftist policies of people like Katie Wilson and her supporters who are to blame. Things would be much worse if she gets elected, which is quite unlikely.
Please explain how the business-backed mayors from the past 12 years have pushed “leftist” policies, and why “leftists” are to blame for everything, when the city has been largely controlled by a business-backed City Council majority and mayor for decades*. You can’t blame Katie Wilson for Bruce Harrell’s massive failures over the past two decades.
*with the exception of one term where there was a slight majority of progressives on City Council which also saw one of the biggest global health crises in human history that disrupted all aspects of city life.
All these people use Covid as a reason to have mass surveillance and more cops etc. Everything is based on falsehoods. People do believe it too.
Your logic? If you vote for someone? You are exactly like them.
That’s totally rational right?
wrong one…Sorry…There’s too many rats in here for this idiot…lol
Your association isn’t a strong one. I voted for her. I do not agree with her militant approach. But most of it I do agree with. Poverty is at about 40%. I am for progressive laws. That’s about it. I am a mainstream progressive and voted for her vs. a bad alternative. Have not the conservatives done enough damage to America and in fact, the entire Earth?
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. They have SODA, yet do not ever enforce it. They want a 30 year contract quid pro quo chamber of commerce members partners/family. No vote, just shove mass surveillance down our throats. I wonder what the penalty is for “breach of contract”??? A Billion dollars? They spent time clawing back everything the former council did. Like affordable housing and minimum wage. Inventing gimmicks to try to fool people into getting robbed again. 50+ years flat wages is not enough. Greed. That’s all it is. Greed.
I can’t wait to flush this waste and get some fresh, younger ideas and a moral compass.
Amen to that.
This is a tough one. Harrell is a homophobe, so no thanks. Wilson is way to far to the left for me.
Why not Mallahan??