Seattle Mayoral Race Shows Progressive Shift, Mirroring New York

The Space Needle in Seattle, Washington, US, on Thursday, July 4, 2024. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is scheduled to release US consumer price index (CPI) figures on July 11. Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg Photo by SeongJoon Cho /Bloomberg

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(Bloomberg) — A progressive community organizer who campaigned on affordability is narrowly ahead of business-friendly Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell in the city’s primary, a result that has echoes of the recent Democratic mayoral race in New York.

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First-time candidate Katie Wilson was leading Harrell by more than 5,000 votes as of Thursday morning in the non-partisan primary. If the results hold, Wilson and Harrell will advance to the November general election under the city’s top-two system, in which the top leading vote-getters move forward regardless of party affiliation.

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Wilson, 43, has campaigned on her involvement in past efforts to raise the minimum wage, tax large corporations, improve public transit and provide stronger protections for renters. She served as part of a revenue task force for the city under Harrell and accused him of ignoring proposals for progressive revenue that she says would have stabilized city finances. 

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Harrell, 60, is a Democrat seeking a second term. He’s backed by business, labor and the political establishment, including Governor Bob Ferguson. 

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The clash in ideology resembles the June election in New York, where Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist who also ran on affordability and rent protection, defeated former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who had the backing of business leaders. While the two contests on opposite coasts differed in scale and setting, both featured progressive candidates who gained momentum in cities long dominated by establishment Democrats.

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Mamdani’s victory in New York brought more attention and energy to Wilson’s campaign, according to spokesperson Alex Gallo-Brown. He said before the New York primary the campaign had around two dozen people dialing in to calls for volunteers; the week after, they had 80.

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Harrell on Wednesday said he expected the race to be challenging, and he pointed his 2021 primary that showed a similarly close contest, only for him to win handily when more voters turned out in the general election. 

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Refining Message

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Wilson, who was endorsed by local Democratic groups, has refined some of her earlier positions on homelessness and public safety, especially after Seattle’s post-pandemic rise in violent crime and drug-related deaths led voters to sweep progressive leaders out of power. 

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“Progressives across the board in this election cycle have moved away from some of the harder-edge messages that turned off a lot of middle-of-the-road voters,” said Sandeep Kaushik, a political strategist. “The affordability message is something that people feel broadly.” 

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Seattle is tough on incumbents: The last time a mayor won reelection was two decades ago. Harrell has tried to shore up his progressive credentials by proposing a change to the city’s gross-revenue tax that would increase the rate for large corporations like Amazon.com Inc. and provide relief for small businesses. While Amazon still has a large presence in Seattle, much of the company’s growth in recent years has been in neighboring Bellevue.

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There’s also a limit to how much the primary reveals about the general election electorate. Only a third of voters in Seattle’s King County returned their mailed ballots, according to Washington’s secretary of state. That low turnout tends to benefit challengers in the primary, as people looking for a change are more motivated to fill out and mail back their ballots. 

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Challengers running on progressive platforms were also ahead of more moderate incumbents in races for city attorney and the City Council seat currently occupied by council President Sara Nelson. 

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