Updated on August 7, 5:36 p.m.: The Tiniest Conservative Bump, Progressives Still Dominate
Katie Wilson loses barely any ground in Thursday’s drop: With 30% of the ballots counted in the Seattle Mayor’s race, Katie Wilson holds an almost 4 point lead (3.95 point). Yesterday, she had a 4.48 point lead. The slight droop barely matters, and is still higher than her 2 point lead on election night.
City Attorney Ann Davison fucked as she ever was: Erika Evans held a steady 17 point lead over incumbent Davison.
Finish Her! D9 candidate Dionne Foster lost a half point to City Council President Sara Nelson. She’s still got a 17.42 point lead.
Skateboarding still not cool: Eddie Lin holds on to the same 16 point lead over Adonis Duckworth. Wipeout, dude.
Oh, what a night. Will you remember where you were when you learned Bruce Harrell was behind on primary night of his re-election campaign? We will never forget it.
We were at Katie Wilson’s party, where she whispered into the mic: “Are we really at 46 percent?” We were at Harrell’s lakeside shindig eyeing the botched sheet cake and waiting for somebody, anybody, to mention that he was behind. We were at Stoup Brewing, watching an audience mob Alexis Mercedes Rinck, Dionne Foster, and Erika Evans with hugs. We were kicking it with our guy Girmay Zahilay in front of a sneaker wall at Darkalino’s.
We learned a lot from the first ballots in Seattle city races. And, reader, it’s good. Now that we’re done binging free candidate booze and cramming crab legs in our uncensored cakeholes, we’re ready to get into what the hell this means for the state of the city and the upcoming general election. Let’s dig in.
Progressives did amazingly well on the first ballot drop. We don’t even feel the need to knock on wood or sacrifice any more babies for the cause. The left swept last night. Katie Wilson didn’t even believe the numbers when she saw them. Wilson is more than a full point ahead of Bruce Harrell. Erika Evans and Dionne Foster both cracked 50 percent of the vote. Alexis Mercedes Rinck didn’t have a real challenger, and she has 75 percent. Traditionally, in our mail-in voting system, older conservatives vote earlier and younger progressives vote later, so we should expect to see the numbers go up for the left in the next few days.
For some context, let’s look at the District 2 Tammy Morales/Tanya Woo showdown in the 2023 primary. Election nerds might remember that Morales absolutely trounced Woo in the primary. But night of, they were only three points apart. Morales grabbed seven more points by the time the election was called, securing a full 10-point lead.
Similarly, in the 2021 mayoral primary, Harrell had a nine-point lead on Lorena González in the first ballot drop, and she clawed back seven points.
The backlash to the post-2020 conservative backlash has begun. These results are a referendum on Seattle’s existing political establishment. Voters didn’t buy Harrell and Nelson’s campaign messaging. People obviously want something different. Harrell’s in trouble. The one-term mayoral curse is already working its magic (not to discredit his history of being a bad mayor). Nelson is done. Dionne Foster, until recently a political unknown, knocked her lights out. “Nelson and Bruce are fucking cooked,” Stephen Paolini, progressive political consultant, said in a text.
And while they cook, egg is dripping from the faces of all the people who endorsed Harrell: MLK Labor, Governor Bob Ferguson, Attorney General Nick Brown, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, King County Council Member Teresa Mosqueda, and many, many others. Were they scared that upsetting the establishment candidate (and, for a time, expected shoo-in) would complicate their political lives?
Wilson has extended a hand. “Earlier this year, many powerful people and powerful groups made the decision to line up behind the mayor, because they didn’t think that anyone would dare to challenge him,” Wilson said in her election night speech. “They didn’t think that anyone would try to hold him accountable. But they didn’t know about you. They didn’t know that the voters of Seattle would demand better. So I say to those who are still backing Harrell, even though they might actually want us to win, you know who you are: It’s time to join our campaign.”
Red rover, red rover, come on over.
King County Executive candidate Girmay Zahilay’s 10 percent lead over Claudia Balducci, his opponent and colleague on the King County Council, is striking, but it does not guarantee him a win in the general election. The 10 percent that went for County Assessor John Arthur Wilson, who eventually suspended his campaign after accusations that he was allegedly stalking his ex, will go somewhere. It’s not clear where yet.
“She has a really strong chance in a two-way race,” Lexi Koren, consultant for Claudia Balducci, said in a text. “The next two candidates, Derek Chartrand and John Wilson, got a combined 22% [of the vote], and she’s got a better shot with those voters given the Seattle Times endorsement. And two of the other candidates that got a lesser vote share (about 3.5 percent combined)—Amiya Ingram and Bill Hirt—are also from Bellevue.”
So long, Ann. Seattle clearly does not want a Republican in charge of anything in our town, especially not the Seattle City Attorney’s Office. This is not the time to be soft on Trump, to revive regressive anti-drug and prostitution laws, and to completely dismantle community court, the one part of the justice system trying to steer people out of jail. Erika Evans ended the night with 51 percent of the vote, a cushy 14-point lead over incumbent Ann Davison. Her fellow progressive Davison challengers, Nathan Rouse and Rory O’Sullivan, scooped up 4.9 percent and 6.3 percent, respectively. Don’t let the revolving door hit you on the way out, Ann. Or do.
Speaking of Republicans, there are 13,500 people (and counting) living among you who willingly voted Rachel Savage for District 8, who wants to ban homeless people from sleeping outside, ban public drug use, throw offenders in jail or treatment for a year, and “return to a system of compassionate law enforcement” that has never existed.
The ’90s are finally over, and skateboarding is no longer cool. All Adonis Ducksworth has is 30 percent of the vote and a sore arm from the tattoo he got on primary night.
Eddie Lin, on the other hand, got the lion’s share of the progressive vote. He pulled in 45 percent of the vote while sharing the progressive spotlight with challengers Jamie Fackler and Jeanie Chunn earning 10 percent and 12.5 percent, respectively. Will all of those voters go toward Lin in the general? It’s hard to say. What remains clear is that Ducksworth will be skating uphill on the road to November 4.
“In a word, we’re feeling ecstatic,” Lin wrote in a text last night. “D2 residents are feeling squeezed by skyrocketing rent and higher costs. Our campaign focused on concrete steps to address the affordability crisis, and tonight’s results show voters resonated with that message. I’m so thankful to the numerous volunteers and over 2,300 [donors] that made this possible. We’re going to keep fighting for a Seattle that works for everyone!”
Seattle Times-endorsed candidates performed poorly: The paper typically endorses everyone we don’t, but we do rarely overlap because sometimes logic actually prevails in that room. This year, the only candidates both papers endorsed were Joe Mizrahi, Janice Zahn, and Osman Salahuddin, and, because the Seattle Times Editorial Board is not completely stupid, it endorsed the King County Parks Levy that makes sure we can have public parks in this county. After this first ballot drop, only their Bellevue City Council candidates (not our circus, nor our monkeys) and King County Council candidates Steffanie Fain and Pete von Reichbauer were leading their races, and von Reichbauer barely counts. The man has been in his seat for three decades. He will die there.
Is that the sound of purses unzipping? All right, now that the more conservative, more big-business-friendly candidates are well behind in the polls, where will all of that outside money, like Nelson’s friends at the National Association of Realtors, start flowing? It’s hard to say. In 2019, when progressives last had a very good year in this city, businesses like Amazon spent $2.5 million fighting against those results with the Civic Alliance for a Sound Economy PAC. Progressives ultimately won, but those races were razor-thin, and voters may have been motivated to swing left due to all of the outside money. The way 2025’s primary shook out—with progressives in sexy, bodacious leads—is unprecedented.
Paolini, the consultant, isn’t sure what will happen with independent expenditures in Nelson’s race. “They may still feel they need to help her or delude themselves into thinking she has a chance,” he said. As for Harrell, that’s a different story. “I’d expect a big influx there,” Paolini said. “They’re in too deep.”
Regardless of what happens, this primary is the beginning, not the end. “We’re going to need to keep rallying to raise money to talk to voters in the general and not take anything for granted,” Paolini said. “Crazier shit has happened. We have an advantage: it’s time to step on it, not let up.”
If progressives don’t take their feet off the gas, if an influx of big business money doesn’t win over our hearts and minds, and if the world doesn’t end before November 4, then we might have a progressive mayor and a city council no longer paralyzed by Sara Nelson.
The Stranger Election Control Board is Nathalie Graham, Marcus Harrison Green, Vivian McCall, Charles Mudede, Emily Nokes, Megan Seling, a sad slice of cake, and Hannah Murphy Winter.
