Flanked by his wife and with a quip-filled speech at Seattle City Hall, Mayor Bruce Harrell conceded the race to keep his seat Thursday to his challenger.
Saying he had a “delightful conversation” with “mayor-elect Katie Wilson,” Harrell spent the bulk of his 45-minute address thanking staff and defending his record leading the city out of the pandemic since taking office in 2021.
“I feel very good about the future for this country and this city, too. That is the attitude we have to have,” Harrell said Thursday. “I hope everyone who can hear the sound of my voice feels the same.”
There were also bitter moments as the veteran politician made an off-handed remark about “anomalies” in the results and voter turnout. King County Elections reported Seattle turnout at just over 55% — slightly above predictions. The final count will show Wilson besting Harrell by more than 2,000 votes.
UPDATE: Wilson celebrated the campaign win Thursday. “We took on a powerful incumbent who was expected to coast to reelection. We faced more corporate PAC money than has ever been spent attacking a candidate in a Seattle election,” Wilson said in a statement on social media. We built a people-powered movement rooted in hope for our city’s future. And we won.”
Wilson also repeated her campaign tagline: “This is your city”
In a Thursday afternoon press release. members of the Seattle City Council congratulated Wilson. The message from downtown and Magnolia rep Bob Kettle, a Harrell ally and centrist voice on the council, shed light on what could be a contentious relationship with Wilson.
Saying he looks forward to working with Wilson, Kettle said, “Our city’s crucial task now is to prove that a major West Coast blue city can operate efficiently and effectively while upholding our core Seattle values.”
“This commitment will be the guiding principle for my work on the Council throughout the next two years,” Kettle said.
Whether Wilson will allow her priorities to be gated by concerns about the Trump administration remains to be seen.
Kettle and others on the council also praised Harrell. “This city is measurably better off because of his leadership,” Kettle said.
District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth, who considered Harrell a mentor and enjoyed the mayor’s support in her 2023 election victory, was not included in the council statement.
CHS reported here on Wednesday’s ballot count that put Wilson clear of a recount as the socialist — and Capitol Hill renter — claimed the city’s highest office with a surge in support among later-voters.
The Central District-born Harrell was elected mayor in 2021. First elected to the Seattle City Council in 2007, Harrell would go on to win two more terms and serve as council president before deciding not to run again in 2019. The 67-year-old was raised in the Central District and briefly served as the city’s first Asian-American mayor in 2017 after Ed Murray resigned.
Harrell’s style was a surprising throwback in a city with Seattle’s liberal leanings with old-school pet peeves like graffiti and his propensity for sports metaphors and tough guy posturing. On a neighborhood tour in 2022, the newly elected Mayor Harrell created a photo opp in a Capitol Hill gym by squeezing in a quick weight lifting session.
During his time in office, Harrell guided a One Seattle campaign of public safety and development he said he had hoped to continue into a second term. Harrell’s time in office also guided the city through recovery coming out of the pandemic. There were missteps including his loyalty to troubled Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz and his reluctance to develop new taxes until his late teaming with Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck to back an overhaul of the city’s B&O tax approved this month by voters.
Harrell was proud of his efforts to reverse SPD’s hiring challenges and get the department on track for growing its ranks from the just under 1,000 officers on patrol in 2022 to nearly 1,500 by 2027. Harrell also reshaped the leadership of SPD with the hiring of Chief Shon Barnes to helm the department as it operates without federal oversight for the first time in more than a decade.
Harrell also oversaw Seattle’s early steps in building a new CARE Department with its crisis responders hoped to continue taking on a larger share of the city’s public safety work.
Another visible part of the Harrell legacy on Capitol Hill and in the Central District could be the near-$1 million in surveillance cameras being added in the Pike/Pine area and near Garfield High School as part of the SPD Real-Time Crime Center that Harrell championed.
Other unfinished Harrell business includes initiatives like the city’s new ban on “negative use restrictions” hoped to preserve grocery stores in vulnerable areas of the city. A bid to address homelessness and drug use in Seattle parks including Capitol Hill’s Seven Hills Park is also still playing out.
Attention now turns to mayor-elect Wilson to see which Harrell initiatives will continue and which will be unwound.
In Thursday’s address, Harrell spent time defending his and his wife Joanne Harrell’s legacy in a wealthy city with continued challenges around homelessness and affordability including the legislation he said he backed over the years “designed to uplift people from the roots of poverty and from being underrepresented.”
“If there’s one thing that I take pride in — I don’t care what they say, what they write about me,” Harrell said, “I’m not a cruel person, I’m not a flawed person… I try to lead with love.”
$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month -- or choose your level of support 🖤
cool. Bye
Not a flawed person? Always leave’em laffin’.
HAH yeah, neither cruel nor flawed!!! Just a guy who fences up parks
What a legacy to leave office with! Parks should be open for the people to enjoy! Not fenced off to keep them out!
“I feel very good about the future for his country and this city, too. That is the attitude we have to have,” Harrell said Thursday. “I hope everyone who can hear the sound of my voice feels the same.”
Everyone join ICE and wear MAGA hats! The future looks so bright we gotta wear shades!
I am so glad this dude is done. What a completely out of touch person does is what he’s done. Nothing more. His ego ate him alive and the council members as well. Their position became their identity.
So 51% of Seattle are MAGA to you? What the hell are you smoking?
Smooth thinks everyone who doesn’t agree 100% with him or is in any way more comfortable than he is, is automatically a MAGA degenerate…
Seattle is probably one of the least MAGA places in the entire country.
Oops, meant to say 49%. Must be my MAGA math skills at work again.
We all make math mistakes from time to time. I was making them long before MAGA was even invented.
It was close enough. I got the point :O)
Stop Bruce’s mass surveillances!
PLEASE make sure there’s an independent audit of his budget! There will be a LOT of… friendly funding allocations to get ride of
It probably wouldn’t hurt for every single budget proposed by a mayor or city council to undergo an independent audit before it can be adopted to check for things like that.
Privilege is alive and well in Seattle. A wealthy young woman who dropped out of Oxford — wearing her Goodwill blazer and offering big promises — is now our next Mayor. Let’s be honest: if this were someone from a marginalized community, they would’ve been expected to prove themselves ten times over.
I’m not saying this to be combative. I’m saying it because it’s true. And before anyone decides to “educate” me on the subject, let me make it clear: I’m Black, and I know exactly how differently the bar is set depending on who you are.
We’ll see how this plays out, but nothing comes for free — not in politics, and not in leadership.
Thank you so much for speaking this truth! I want to be wrong about Ms. Wilson, but my fear is that I’m not and we all suffer through her meager skill set.
your meager shill set says Katie is going to do it alllll by herself! The team does the work. Katie shakes hands and kisses babies. Bruce’s old job.
Bruce liked to remind us….over and over and over again….that he’s from a marginalized community….
yeah…he beat the crap outta that horse. It was alive when he started.
Meanwhile there is Girmay Zahilay crowing that he is the first immigrant, millennial, blah, blah, blah. Ironic that those who so fully embrace identity politics, hello Seattle Progressives, cast stones at Harrell for embracing and expounding upon his identity.
Her parents are college professors, not members of the Trump family. She’s only rich if you don’t understand how that works.
Harrell was a corporate lawyer and is worth millions of dollars.
Not sure if you’re aware of this but being a women makes her marginalized, more so than someone with millions of dollars and a penis. But thank you for thinking being black makes you immune from staying stupid shit. You also obviously have a wee wee since you don’t seem to think women count as being marginalized.
Just the kind of comment to expect from a Wilson supporter.
really? It’s the truth so…yes…you may be right
Responding to just the kind of smear I’d expect from a Seattle right winger who lost an election and can’t get over it.
If anything I said was false, feel free to prove it.
I hear what you’re trying to argue, but what you’re saying shows a real misunderstanding of how race and privilege actually work in this country. I’m a Black woman, I live the reality of racial inequity every day, and I don’t need a lecture on marginalization.
Yes, being a woman is a marginalized identity. That’s true. But it doesn’t erase the fact that race and class both shape how people are treated, perceived, and judged, especially in politics. A wealthy white woman with academic parents is not navigating the same barriers as candidates from marginalized racial backgrounds. That’s the point I was making.
And please don’t dismiss what I said by assuming I “don’t think women are marginalized.” I said what I said as a Black woman, not as someone ignorant of sexism.
We can disagree on the candidates, but let’s not pretend that privilege, race, and class don’t intersect in complicated ways. That’s exactly why these conversations matter.
Katie Wilson isn’t rich. Her parents aren’t rich. Harrell is rich. You misrepresented the facts pure and simple.
I’m not black, but I’m pretty sure a white middle-aged woman trumps a black man any day in the hierarchy of being “marginalized.” She’ll probably not get stared at with a suspicious eye when entering a retail store, or public spaces, like a black man would. No matter how rich Harrell becomes, he’s still a black man in a white system. She’s white in a white system. Personal wealth doesn’t erase or cure that system. Her “safe spaces” exist everywhere in America. Quite different reality for Harrell.
Once again, Harrell is a millionaire political insider, he’s not marginalized in the most capitalist country to ever exist.
And once again, Wilson’s not rich. Her parents are college professors. Wilson herself makes about half of what a principal at a Seattle public school would make and they’re not rich.
Don’t be a Progressive a-hole. The poster never said if they were male or female, you just went straight for the insult (or the wee wee in your case). We’ve had (white) female mayors, even governors. Harrell was the first black/asian mayor so many felt strongly about that, male or female, no matter how flawed many perceived him to be.
You had better hope Wilson does well and isn’t in over her head or there will more crow eaten by the left than fly over the CD every day. Or perhaps a bit of growing up.
Norm Rice was not white.
> Her parents are college professors, not members of the Trump family.
Both her parents have tenure and can easily afford to pay for their college dropout’s child day care while her husband sits around the house baking muffins. Not privileged in the slightest!.
Her parents are multi millionaires.. her dad is worth $75.5 million… they probably blow their noses on more money that it takes to put her toddler into daycare..
The cost of facial tissue has indeed gone up in recent years, but the cost of daycare has increased significantly more. While $75.5 million is a lot of money, even $1 million doesn’t go as far as it used to.
That’s not rich. That’s not wealthy. Harrell is a rich, well-connected political insider. The idea she’s somehow more privileged than him is ridiculous.
LOL.. you should do a little research.. She comes from a long line of privilege. Her grandfather was Harvard educated best selling author.. Her dad’s net worth is reputedly $75.5 million.. They probably have more actual liquid assets than Trump – well at least before he started his crypto schemes…
Cite your source, since his net worth isn’t available publicly.
really? wow…what a giant steamy load that is.
I mean c’mon. At least TRY to make a sane argument.
Thank you for pointing out that being a woman makes one marginalized. It should not be that way, but it too often is in this world where men are far too dominant in far too many sectors of society. No one should be marginalized on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity, skin color, sexuality, religion, creed, or any other similar factor!
100%. The hit pieces against Wilson showed Harrell and his team’s disdain for women. I moved in 2021, and I’m a moderate. After seeing the disgusting attacks, I would have voted for Wilson.
Anyone feeling sorry for Harrell right now should stop. Everyone involved in his campaign to make it about gender, age, and privilege sucks. They destroyed Seattle politics.
Definitely – the press coverage on this race had racist undertones IMO.
It also had a lot of misogynistic ones.
Are there any outlets that, in your opinion, were greater offenders in this regard?
I thought CHS and the West Seattle Blog did a great job covering the race, but was somewhat underwhelmed by the other outlets in town.
You’re a pretty marginalized group when they government is still trying to control what you can do with your vagina.
Most MAGA have only seen a vagina at birth…and they don’t remember it
How about whether you can even vote?
what? they used her parents money as a weapon. Not an asset…WTF are you even talking about?
You turn it into a money and race thing?
May I remind you? .8% difference in voters. The closet race since 1906.
But you think the difference was he was black and Katie’s rich parents?
Go do something else that’s simpler than this.
That 0.8% is implicit racism, and yes — in a white-fragile Seattle, the difference absolutely comes down to race and class. He’s a Black man, and she’s a wealthy white woman. If Katie were a Black woman, she wouldn’t even be considered a viable candidate. She’d have to work twice as hard and prove ten times more just to be taken seriously. But here we are.
And honestly, the fact that you’re more offended by me bringing up race than by the inequity itself says a lot. That reaction is white fragility — and it’s exactly why these conversations are necessary.
grow up
Of course you’re right about how race, class & privilege work. But I think you’re wrong to suggest Wilson is a breezy freeloader who has not proved herself. That’s exactly the story Harrell spend $3M to spread during his negative campaigning. But if you look at Wilson’s record as a community organizer, she has proved that she can lead, build strong coalitions, and get stuff done.
Sorry, I’m going to have to disagree. I genuinely don’t understand how she plans to address crime, gang violence, or the realities marginalized communities face every day. She resonates with the young white Capitol Hill crowd who complain about the price of coffee and parking—not the people in South Seattle who are actually dealing with the impact of racial inequality.
From where I stand as a Black woman, it’s obvious she’s out of touch. She doesn’t have lived experience with the communities that are most affected by these issues, and her platform doesn’t show any real understanding of what it’s like for people who don’t look like her or live like her. And that’s the sad part—because those are the voices that need to be centered, not overlooked.
Seattle consistently elects candidates of color by very large margins. Seattle is only about 7% Black, yet the new City Council will include two Black women, one Black man, a Native American woman, a Latina woman, a multiracial woman, and an Asian American man. Only two of the nine members are White men.
We also just elected Dionne Foster, Girmay Zahilay, and Erika Evans. Seattle voters have clearly shown they’re willing to elect (and often prefer) candidates of color.
She don’t care. Everything is racist to her it appears.
Hey, I’m a 78-year-old Black woman, and yes everything is about race, whether people want to admit it or not. Every single person of color who has made it into office had to work twice as hard and prove themselves at every turn. That’s not an opinion; that’s the reality we’ve lived through.
Meanwhile, this privileged white girl shows up with no real experience, wealthy millionaire parents, and suddenly she’s treated like she has all the answers? Like she’s some kind of savior? Please. That’s the definition of privilege right there.
And let me be clear: do not disregard someone simply because they are Black. Don’t do that. Don’t minimize lived experience. When you ignore the role race plays, you become part of the very problem you claim not to see.
Have you read some of the comments about Hollingsworth found here?
We have a long ways to go.
Just because Joy is black has nothing to do with clawing back wages like a MAGA freak.
The racism you experienced was horrific. It’s still prevalent today but not like the 60’s 70’s 80’s. There’s still sundown towns today. But every town was a sundown in the 50’s and 60’s.
I hear what you are saying.
Good to see you are all so gracious in victory, even when those you opposed are gracious in defeat. Shows so well on you. As a reminder, we are all Democrats people. Stay focussed on the real opposition.
OH PALEEEZ! You badmouth progressives ENDLESSLY!
You deserve to just sit a soak in it a while. Bruce lost. Savage lost. Take it and like it buddy.
They really can’t handle shoe on the other foot.
No
They are the snowflakes. They project and contradict endlessly. Completely un self aware.
If all you complain about is lowering taxes, more cops and surveillances of others. More removal of humans w/o regard for their continued well being or the laws.
Cut the safety net to shreds. While also cutting wages or simply no wage growth.
Defense spending and more defense spending.
Charter schools. Business first.
I could go on. But that’s MAGA. It’s also Bruce Harrell. Yet the people voting for him are not MAGA??? Nope, they call themselves “Moderates” who stand for nothing but them. Nobody else and nothing else. That is MAGA. Not democrat/liberal. It’s conservative on every level.
But they cry endlessly about how their beliefs translates in the real world under real scrutiny.
The counter is always “You are for crime everywhere and homeless everywhere and drawing people from all over ‘mercah for a free lunch!” And nobody is for that of course. But it is the only alternative to MAGA is a burning city? THAT is quintessential MAGA. “Only I can do it!” “My way is the only way”. But they are not all MAGA?
“libs” don’t complain about parents helping their kids get through life. And life has rarely been tougher in America than today. Not that the outgoing politicians had any hand in it. They of course, were on the cusp of greatness! If only they could “finish” what they started! Give em’ one more term and utopia baby! KIOSK HEAVEN! WIN WIN!
Only a moron would think any part of a kiosk deal is a win for the voters is MAGA. It’s wholly business first. But they sold it as a “win win”…lol Yes, for the dude at the chamber of commerce gets a commission with his Kiosk connections and cops and business as well benefit.
The whole thing is so transparently self-centered it’s terrifying. The last 50 years has been brutal.
As I said, we are all Democrats. I certainly recognize that most Progressives, other than those who identify as members of the Social Democratic party, are Democrats. Much as you insist anyone who doesn’t vote like you is stupid and a MAGA supporter, it just isn’t true. I hope Katie Wilson successfully brings the city together and advances a reasonable governing agenda. I don’t really expect that, but perhaps the six remaining Liberal members of Council will help her do it. And for your information, I did not vote for Rachel Savage. Why you thought I did is beyond me,
“Much as you insist anyone who doesn’t vote like you is stupid and a MAGA supporter, it just isn’t true.”
Here we go again… Make broad brush bs to cover for yourself. Your record speaks for itself. Don’t pretend otherwise.
All I am saying is policy positions positions you on the political map as “something”. The policies and arguments I stated are in fact bread and butter MAGA. Like it or not.
Bruce’s concession speech was gracious enough. Congratulating Katie, wishing her and the city well, and thanking his staff were all respectful and proper things to do.
I completely agree. His concession speech was the kind of thing you’re supposed to say following your election defeat when you live in a functioning democracy. Kudos to him. What I was referring to as lack of graciousness were the crowing and dismissive comments made by some here following his concession speech. Hopefully the Mayor elect brings more graciousness to the table when she deals with the Liberal dominated Council, who still represent the people of Seattle. She will find it much more difficult to advance her agenda if she does not.
FOUR YEARS and he and his “fantastic team” couldn’t even figure out a way to keep junkies out of the parks. The incompetence was staggering….
And despite a seemingly gracious concession speech, he ran a nasty negative campaign and I love that it bit him in the end. I’m sure plenty of his sycophants are already crawling over to knock on Katie’s door wanting to help her run the joint. It’s that or lose their jobs…..
anyone who cowed to Bruce needs to go.
You need to go…you are the problem with Seattle. Good lord…
Been here 60 years. I think you are on to something!
Are you going to eliminate the Dept of Education as well? Seems like you’re intent upon a MAGA style purge.
Sometimes, even four years and a “fantastic team” aren’t enough to solve the biggest of problems.
It’s plenty of time to do nothing or worse.
Indeed it is.
The deal is if the person with the 4 years did something good? The next person benefits most days. Most days results come over time. Not an instant fix or breakage. It takes a minute.
That said? There’s things that work. And things that do not. “Trickle Down” clearly is a scam. Deregulation as well is a bad idea.
After the Great Depression, we had “The New Deal” and tons of Wall Street, Bank and economic reforms to eliminate robber barons.
Reagan and Clinton destroyed in practically overnight. Everyone after finished it off.
She will rely on rabid extreme bureaucrats already ensconced in city hall to do her bidding.
The amazing thing to me is she has a very sketchy work record. She and her husband don’t value or participate in hard work. They live off others.
I really don’t know how she can relate to a hard-working person.
I hope she reports for work on time every day, doesn’t seem to come naturally to her.
What time should she report to work each day? Being mayor of a city the size of Seattle is more than a full time job, but Wilson can’t neglect her family and health (namely sleep…sleep is so important for proper human functioning) too much either.
say you are a boomer w/o saying it?
Again, I’m a boomer, I think, I’ve in my house since 1983 in the Central Area, are you isolating?…how you keep insulting people is beyond me…