Just months ago, it seemed Mayor Bruce Harrell was on the glide path to reelection — something no Seattle mayor has managed since Greg Nickels won a second term in 2005.
Longtime progressive organizer Katie Wilson entered the race in March and quickly emerged as the frontrunner among Harrell’s challengers. But Harrell has been backed by some key organizations that typically support and donate to progressive candidates, including MLK Labor and the service workers’ union SEIU 775.
Nonetheless, a recent poll of Seattle voters commissioned by the Northwest Progressive Institute found Harrell and Wilson neck and neck heading into the August 5 primary with 33% and 31% support, respectively. Former T-Mobile executive and 2009 mayoral candidate Joe Mallahan got 3% in the poll, with the other six candidates getting statistically no support. Another 27% of poll respondents said they were undecided.
Wilson has also matched Harrell in fundraising, with both maxing out the $450,000 primary election cap for candidates participating in the Democracy Voucher program, though Harrell has a PAC backing his campaign that’s raised more than $300,000 so far.
Harrell was elected to the mayor’s office in 2021 by a city just beginning to pull itself out of the morass of the COVID-19 pandemic. He promised to prioritize public safety, address street homelessness, help struggling businesses and generally aid Seattle’s recovery.
His pitch today: Seattle’s in a far better place than it was four years ago, but the city needs a steady hand to keep that progress going.
Wilson is co-founder and general secretary of the Seattle Transit Riders Union, a left-wing political organization that has successfully pushed for expanded transit access, minimum-wage increases and renter protections. Wilson also played a central role in Seattle’s Jumpstart Payroll Expense Tax, which taxes big businesses and has been a critical funding source for building affordable housing and balancing the city budget.
Wilson’s pitch is that Harrell is part of the political status quo leading the city while homelessness worsens and the cost of living skyrockets. She argues that new leadership will help improve Seattle for working people.
Harrell’s time in City Hall stretches back to 2008, when he began his first of three terms as a Seattle City Councilmember. Prior to that, he was a telecommunications lawyer.
As mayor, Harrell has focused on police hiring to rebuild the Seattle Police Department’s ranks after the officer exodus that began in 2020. To do so, he has introduced hiring bonuses and higher starting salaries, among other efforts. He also oversaw the launch of the CARE Department, a 911 alternative-responder program that sends mental health professionals into certain public emergencies.
Harrell also touts his work on housing and homelessness. He proposed a record $973 million housing levy, which voters passed in 2023, to fund construction and operations for subsidized affordable housing.
He oversaw an 80% decrease in tent encampments in Seattle. Some celebrated this as progress on the issue. But homelessness advocates have criticized Harrell for tripling the number of encampment clearances while Seattle still lacks sufficient shelter space, meaning many homeless residents are just being shuffled around rather than getting off the street.
Harrell also prioritized Downtown’s post-pandemic recovery with a set of policies to help businesses and bring in more foot traffic, among other initiatives.
Wilson has a lengthy list of policy priorities to address homelessness, housing affordability, transportation, public safety, climate and more, should she get elected.
On homelessness, she wants to open 4,000 new units of emergency housing and shelter in her first term, ramp up access to opioid treatment and behavioral health programs and engage with residents of “unsafe and persistent” encampments to close them.
On housing, Wilson pledges to support the new social housing developer (the success of the social housing tax in February inspired her to enter the race). In addition, she wants to use bonding capacity to create a $1 billion fund for affordable-housing construction and seek additional renter protections.
On public safety, Wilson wants to invest in violence prevention and diversion programs; address drug hotspots with more outreach, treatment and services; and expand police alternatives like CARE to allow police officers to respond to crimes and focus on investigations.
Unsurprisingly for someone who crafted a big-business tax and sat on Seattle’s progressive revenue task force, Wilson wants to pay for initiatives with new progressive taxes, including passing a city-level capital gains tax and potentially increasing the Jumpstart tax.
Josh Cohen
Though they garnered meek support in the recent mayoral poll, Mallahan and Ry Armstrong have raised $127,000 and $161,000 respectively, enough to run viable primary campaigns.
A longtime T-Mobile executive, Mallahan narrowly lost to Mayor Mike McGinn in the 2009 election. He touts his leadership experience and says he would be a better mayor who’s able to bring real results on progressive solutions.
Armstrong is an actor, environmental nonprofit executive director and leader in Actors Equity, the actors’ labor union. They ran in the 2023 primary for Seattle’s District 3 Council seat.
Armstrong is running as a progressive who would prioritize affordable housing, community-based interventions and alternative responders, workers’ rights and new progressive taxes.
In addition to MLK Labor and SEIU, Harrell has been endorsed by just about every big-name Democrat in the state, including Gov. Bob Ferguson, Attorney General Nick Brown, U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell and Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal. He also has the support of the building trade unions and the CEOs of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Downtown Seattle Association.
Wilson recently got an endorsement from Protec 17, the largest union representing Seattle city employees, along with UAW Local 4121 and American Federation of Teachers Washington, showing that she has some labor backing. She’s also been endorsed by a number of democratic organizations, including the King County Democrats and the 34th, 36th, 37th and 43rd District Democrats. State Sen. Rebecca Saldaña, former U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott and former Councilmember Tammy Morales have also endorsed.
Armstrong’s endorsements include the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, National Women’s Political Caucus of Washington, King County Young Democrats and Young Democrats of University of Washington.
Mallahan does not list any endorsements on his campaign website.
Other candidates in the race have raised between $0 and $5,200, not enough to compete for citywide office. They are Clint Bliss, a doctor; Joe Molloy, a resident of Seattle’s Tent City 3 encampment; Thaddeus Whelan, an analyst with the Federal Aviation Administration; and Isaiah Willoughby, an apartment leasing agent who was sentenced to two years in prison for starting a fire during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.
Update: This story has been updated to clarify that the Seattle Chamber of Commerce's CEO endorsed Harrell not the Chamber itself and that the NW Progressive Institute commissioned its poll rather than conducted it itself.
