First-term Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell conceded his reelection battle to progressive activist Katie Wilson on Thursday, handing one other victory to leftist Democrats across the nation pissed off with unaffordability, homelessness, public security and the actions of President Donald Trump’s administration.
Harrell, a centrist Democrat who beforehand served three phrases on the Metropolis Council, led in early outcomes. However Washington conducts all-mail elections, with ballots postmarked by Election Day. Later-arriving votes, which traditionally pattern extra liberal, broke closely in Wilson’s favor, including to a progressive shift to the left nationally.
In a concession speech at Metropolis Corridor on Thursday afternoon, Harrell mentioned he had congratulated Wilson in a “pleasant” name.
“I really feel superb about the way forward for this nation and this metropolis nonetheless,” he mentioned.
Wilson, 43, is a democratic socialist who has by no means held elected workplace. She informed a information convention later Thursday that it was exhausting for her to imagine she had been elected mayor, contemplating that firstly of this yr she had no intention of working, and he or she acknowledged issues about her lack of expertise: “Nobody noticed this coming.”
However she additionally spoke to the resonance of her volunteer-driven marketing campaign amongst voters involved about affordability and public security in a metropolis the place the price of dwelling has soared as Amazon and different tech firms proliferated. Common youngster care, higher mass transit, higher public security and steady, reasonably priced housing are amongst her priorities, and he or she mentioned she would take workplace with a powerful mandate to purse them, although she acknowledged town additionally faces a big funds shortfall.
Wilson referred to as herself a coalition builder and group organizer, and mentioned she would additionally work with those that questioned her {qualifications} to guide a metropolis with greater than 13,000 staff and a funds of almost $9 billion: “That is your metropolis too.”
“After I say that is your metropolis, which means you’ve got a proper to be right here and to dwell a dignified life — no matter your background, no matter your revenue,” Wilson mentioned. “Nevertheless it additionally signifies that all of us have a collective accountability for this metropolis and for one another. … We can’t sort out the most important challenges dealing with our metropolis until we do it collectively.”
She shall be working with a comparatively new Metropolis Council: Solely two of the seven council members have served multiple time period.
Harrell was elected mayor in 2021 following the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic and racial justice protests over George Floyd’s homicide by Minneapolis police. With crime falling, extra police being employed, much less seen drug use and plenty of homeless encampments faraway from metropolis parks, the business-backed Harrell as soon as appeared prone to cruise to reelection.
However Trump’s return to workplace — and his efforts to ship in federal brokers or lower funding for blue cities — helped reawaken Seattle’s progressive voters. The lesser-known Wilson, a democratic socialist, ran a marketing campaign that echoed among the themes of progressive mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani in New York. She trounced Harrell by almost 10 share factors within the August major and rapidly grew to become favored to win the mayor’s workplace.
Wilson studied at an Oxford College school in England however didn’t graduate. She based the small nonprofit Transit Riders Union in 2011 and has led campaigns for higher public transportation, larger minimal wages, stronger renter protections and extra reasonably priced housing. She herself is a renter, dwelling in a one-bedroom condominium within the metropolis’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, and says that has formed her understanding of Seattle’s affordability disaster.
Wilson criticized Harrell as doing too little to supply extra shelter and mentioned his encampment sweeps have been beauty, merely pushing unhoused individuals across the metropolis. Wilson additionally painted him as a Metropolis Corridor fixture who bore accountability for the established order.
Harrell, 67, performed on the Rose Bowl champion College of Washington soccer group in 1978 earlier than going to legislation college. His father, who was Black, got here to Seattle from the segregated Jim Crow South, and his mom, a Japanese American, was incarcerated at an internment camp in Minidoka, Idaho, throughout World Battle II after officers seized her household’s Seattle flower store — experiences that fostered his understanding of the significance of civil rights and inclusivity.
Each candidates touted plans for reasonably priced housing, combating crime and trying to Trump-proof town, which receives about $150 million a yr in federal funding. Each need to shield Seattle’s sanctuary metropolis standing.
Wilson has proposed a city-level capital positive aspects tax to assist offset federal funding town would possibly lose and to pay for housing. Harrell says that concept is ineffective as a result of a metropolis capital positive aspects tax may simply be averted by those that could be required to pay it.
