Seattle’s City Council incumbents made it safely past the primary election after the first round of ballot-counting Tuesday night, but Council President Sara Nelson faces an uphill battle against her challenger heading into November.
In the race for Citywide Position 9, nonprofit leader Dionne Foster leads Nelson 53.7% to 39.1%.
Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck has a commanding lead of 75% to 14.9% over Capitol Hill business owner Rachael Savage in the race for Citywide Position 8.
In the special election for southeast Seattle’s District 2 Council seat, Eddie Lin is ahead with 45.7% to Adonis Ducksworth’s 30.6%.
Position 9
Nelson was elected in 2021 on a promise to promote public safety and police hiring, support Seattle businesses and help the city recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. In her first two years on the Council, she frequently found herself in the minority against her more progressive colleagues. But that changed after a slate of district Councilmembers largely aligned with Nelson were elected in 2023 and chose her as Council President.
In that role, she helped increase hiring bonuses and starting salaries for Seattle police officers, attempted to roll back the city’s gig-worker minimum wage and helped fight off a city-level capital gains tax. She also pushed for substance-use disorder services and more support for the city’s film industry.
Foster is the former executive director of the Washington Progress Alliance, where she helped fight for the passage of the state capital gains tax. Prior to that role, she worked as a senior program officer at the Seattle Foundation and as a policy advisor at Seattle Public Utilities. Foster wants to work on creating healthy and safe communities, housing affordability, climate resilience and workforce protections.
Longshoreman Mia Jacobson got 3.6% and former U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics economist Connor Nash received 3.3% of the vote Tuesday.
Position 8
Rinck was elected in 2024 to finish the final year of Teresa Mosqueda’s term after Mosqueda’s election to King County Council. Rinck beat Council appointee Tanya Woo 58%-41% on a campaign platform of passing new progressive taxes to fund social services, affordable housing, police alternatives and community development.
Rinck is the Council’s most politically progressive member. She co-authored a successful bill with Mayor Bruce Harrell to raise business and occupation taxes on the city’s highest-grossing companies while reducing the tax burden for most smaller businesses. The Council voted unanimously on August 4 to send the proposal to voters in November.
Now Rinck is running for reelection to a full four-year term in Position 8 on a similarly progressive platform, with an added focus on protecting Seattleites from the Trump administration.
Savage owns The Vajra, a jewelry and incense shop on Capitol Hill, and runs a meditation and addiction-recovery nonprofit. She is in recovery herself and has been a vocal critic of Seattle’s response to the drug crisis and homelessness. Savage wants the police to arrest more people using drugs and experiencing public mental illness and build long-term residential treatment facilities to house them. She opposes the “housing first” approach to permanent supportive housing, which moves people off the street without insisting they address their addiction first.
Bishop Ray Rogers received 4.8% Tuesday night, musician Jesse James 2.8% and video-game developer Cooper Hall 1.5%.
District 2
Residents in Council District 2, which covers southeast Seattle from the Chinatown-International District through Rainier Beach, will this fall elect a leader to finish the final two years of former Councilmember Tammy Morales’ term after her resignation in January.
After Tuesday’s count, Lin and Ducksworth are moving safely on to the general election, with Ducksworth trailing by about 15%.
Eddie Lin is an attorney with the Seattle City Attorney’s Office, where he primarily represents the Office of Housing, which he says gives him insight into addressing the city’s housing crisis. His top priorities include housing, taxation and public safety.
Ducksworth is a transportation policy advisor in Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office. Prior to that, he worked as a capital projects coordinator and deputy chief of staff for the Seattle Department of Transportation. His top priorities are kids and families, housing, public safety and transportation.
Jeanie Chunn, a food security advocate and restaurant industry activist, was in third with 12.5%. City of Seattle building inspector and union steward Jamie Fackler received 10.44%.
