A little more than a week before Seattle’s primary election, the National Association of Realtors, a Chicago-based political action committee, spent nearly $70,000 on mailers for Council President Sara Nelson’s bid to stay on the Seattle City Council.
In mailers sponsored by the interest group that only issued an apology in 2020 for its racist funding of the opposition to housing inclusion including the Fair Housing Act of 1968, the NAR calls Nelson a politician with “progressive values.” Progressive? Her?
This influx of money and influence is meant to counter Nelson’s extreme unpopularity. Polling in May found that 34 percent of voters disapproved of her job performance. And when voters were surveyed last week, pollsters found that Nelson and her leading opposition, Dionne Foster, are in a dead heat.
This is why Progressive People Power, or P3, a political action committee for, you guessed it, progressive values launched last year to support the more progressive candidate in each race. Last year, it was mainly Alexis Mercedes Rinck, who won in a landslide. This year, there is an entire slate of progressive candidates as we head into voting season.
“Those candidates work really hard and rise above the fold to get into the general election and then walk face first into a meat grinder of massive corporate spending that drowns out their message and makes it impossible for them to win,” Stephen Paolini, a consultant with P3 says.
Since P3 doesn’t endorse, the group’s rule of thumb is to not get involved in the primary. However, P3 is breaking that rule in the District 9 council race against Nelson.
Foster is participating in the Democracy Voucher Program, so she’s only allowed to spend $225,000 on the primary. And at $290,756.83, she’s raised that and then some. Currently, Nelson is not participating in the program, so she’s not limited by its fundraising limits. Her campaign has raised more than $592,000 before the primary, already 70 percent of what she raised between the primary and the general in 2021. And 17 percent of that is from outside of Seattle. Many of her individual contributors are wealth managers, investors, and developers. The $70,000 of PAC money from the NAR (separate from her campaign war chest) isn’t the end, Paolini believes. He thinks it’s only the beginning.
“We knew going into this that this would be a heavyweight fight where the business community would be coming in here and writing a blank check to try and keep what has been an extremely unpopular council president in office,” Paolini says, “and we felt it was really important for us to stand up and fight back.”
So P3 broke with their (albeit one-year) tradition and began funneling money and resources into Nelson challenger and policy expert Dionne Foster’s campaign weeks before the primary.
“This was a race where it’s super clear there’s one person that we need to help elevate and support and who’s going to be outspent by these out of state groups,” Paolini says.
And the group supporting Nelson is one that historically goes ride or die for NIMBYism. At a time when Seattle is dictating the future of Seattle’s development with the Comprehensive Plan, that kind of interest from the NAR may indicate Nelson’s real positions on housing and density.
“This is the mask off moment if anybody was wondering what her values truly are,” Paolini says. Likely, nobody was wondering.
But, on the flip side, these efforts to beat Foster emphasize her values as well. The people who have funded her confirm that, too.
P3 has spent nearly $80,000 on Foster’s behalf so far. According to Paolini, the money P3 spent in this election took over a year to raise from their collaboration with unions and individual donors. Meanwhile, Paolini says groups like NAR can drop that same figure with a snap of a CEO’s fingers.
“We need help from, like, lots of people to keep trying to stand up against this kind of powerhouse of an entity,” Paolini says.
