Sara Nelson's Vision Flopped Statewide
The Meaning of Washington's Primaries
Wow, what a night my friends!
While a lot of questions remain as to why things went the way they did–Even year turnout? Backlash to backlash?--Washington voters showed the door to Republicans and to “Democrats” like Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson who oppose the Democratic Party policy agenda.
Governor and Other Statewide Offices
As an example, Nelson publicly endorsed and donated $750 to gubernatorial candidate and Joe Manchin clone Mark Mullet, a barely-there Dem, who is also endorsed by Republicans. His opponent, Bob Ferguson is a middle of the road, mainstream Democrat, but that’s far too left for Sara Nelson.
This being a Democratic state, Bob Ferguson, the Democrat that actually embraces Democratic party policy, got nearly nine times as many votes as Sara’s fringy Mullet guy, and so looks set to win in November.
In fact, it looks like normie Democrats will win every statewide seat, including my endorsed candidate in the Attorney General Race, Nick Brown.
One worrisome race is the Commissioner of Public Lands, which looks like a nail biter because Democratic votes were divided among too many candidates and only the top two advance. Right now two Republicans lead (fortunately the top one is a never-Trumper), but by the time the votes are counted, Democrat Dave Upthegrove may make it into the general election. If he does, he will likely win.
State Legislators Stay Solidly Left of Center
Other normie Democrats did fantastically around the state. Olympia’s Olympic housing champion, Jess Bateman, absolutely stomped to victory. West Seattle’s Joe Fitzgibbon, who has led hard on environmental issues and has risen to power within the caucus, predictably crushed his Republican opponent, as did Darya Farivar, my own awesome, progressive Representative in the 46th District, which is primarily in Northeast and North Seattle.
And speaking of Progressives, genuine lefty Shaun Scott looks likely to prevail in the 43rd district over his “I promise I’m a Democrat” opponent Andrea Suarez, who also just happens to headline Republican events and allies herself with kooky right wing think-tanks like the Discovery institute that, among other things, think we should “teach the controversy” about evolution in schools.
Interestingly, this wacky right wing Suarez lady happens to have received the support of, who else, but Sara Nelson, Bob Kettle, and Tanya Woo!
Seattle City Council Swings Back to The Democratic Party Platform
Speaking of Woo–there was a Seattle City Council race last night. It was a rare chance to see how a city council election might go in an even year election, although primaries still tend to skew a bit more conservative.
Let’s just say that it didn’t go well in Seattle for Sara Nelson’s push for regressive taxes, fewer social services, and lower wages for frontline workers–or any of her “I promise I’m a Democrat, I just hate the party’s platform” positions.
Alexis Mercedes Rinck, who I also endorsed (and who is running on a very similar platform to the one I ran on with folks like Alex Hudson, Maren Costa, Andrew Lewis, and Tammy Morales last year) looks like she could end with up close to 50% of the vote when all of the ballots are counted. Right now Woo is not only a few points behind, but she is likely to move in a downward direction in the coming days. And most importantly, the total number of progressive votes currently add up to nearly 55% of the total, and I suspect will approach 60% by the end of tabulation.
(Snapped this pic last night as the Position 8 GOAT, Teresa Mosqueda, Celebrated with Alexis)
What Caused The Change in Seattle?
There is a lot of talk about what the cause of the switch in Seattle might be.
Turnout Matters
Is it even-year turnout?* The initial count in Seattle was about 7,000 votes higher than on primary night last year. That probably helped progressives in Seattle, even though higher turnout isn’t necessarily bluer nationwide, like it used to be.
But the total number of votes going to progressives like Alexis was almost 10,000 votes higher than last year. So 7000 extra votes in the mix isn’t enough to account for the improvement. Either the makeup of that electorate was very different or the same people voted differently, for whatever reason–coconut-pilled excitement, more engaged and informed, or something else.
Backlashes?
One other possible something else is that the Chamber cannot keep blaming a progressive city council (that always had to rely on implementation from centrist Mayors, mind you) for Seattle’s problems. This theory is basically that the “backlash” finally lost some steam.
Or there is the backlash to the backlash theory. It could be that folks have realized the council isn’t pursuing the stuff they promised and is instead pursuing a similar tax agenda–lower taxes for the rich, high reliance on taxes for everyone else, less social spending-that is found in project 2025?
Other possible reasons people may have voted differently might include:
Decidedly Right of Center Governance?
Almost no action on the acute housing and homelessness crisis, after Harrell announced his plan to more or less throw in the towel. I should say–there was action, but in the wrong direction. Remember that they shot down an attempt to make it easier to build affordable housing, and seem determined to kill funding for social housing.
Maybe people are offended that Martiza Rivera turned out hundreds of angry leaders from marginalized communities to excoriate her for three hours. Recall that the head of the NAACP said her legislation to defund affordable housing, health clinics and childcare was “a slap in the face of the black community”? Or maybe when Rivera implied right after the speeches that day that the audience just didn’t understand her legislation while she continued to lie about what it would do pushed people over the edge.
Perhaps it was the council’s failed attempt to cut minimum wages for delivery drivers, or roll back minimum wages for tipped workers.
Maybe it had something to do with the council and Mayor throwing away their biggest opportunity to get Seattle up to date with basic police accountability. Or their choice to spend lots of money on a privately run prison with a miserably high death rate, all so they can hold a tiny fraction of the population that is arrested for misdemeanors in a given day, for a night or two at a time, which will have almost no deterrent effect.
Probably it wasn’t that one–they only ratified it last night! Ditto with their violation of the city charter so they can push the social housing funding initiative to February when fewer people will be voting.
But then again, given that their leader, Sara Nelson, made bizarrely antidemocratic statements earlier this year (“higher turnout does not necessarily mean a better informed public”) when saying why she opposes even year elections–maybe voters are seeing that this isn’t exactly an “of the people, by the people and for the people” kinda council.
Only time will tell.
*At some point I plan to sit down with some data wrangling folks I really respect and go deeper on the numbers and see if we can be a bit more rigorous about this