Cascadia today: Katie Wilson trails in Seattle mayor's race as progressives advance

Hello, friends! Here's a report from yesterday's local elections in Washington (and Oregon). You can read more of my reporting from Katie Wilson's election night party in Erica Barnett's article at PubliCola.

Wilson trails in Seattle mayor's race, but late votes favor her

Yesterday's first ballot-drop results in the Seattle mayor's race showed incumbent Bruce Harrell leading labor organizer and transit advocate Katie Wilson 53 to 46 percent. While the results were inconclusive, campaign staff for Wilson were nervously optimistic that late votes – which generally favor progressive candidates – would be enough to overcome an 8,000-vote deficit. As KUOW reported, it will likely be a "nail biter" with final results probably not known until next week. Or to put it more bluntly, as Wilson volunteer and one-time city council candidate Ron Davis told me last night: I think we're going to win, but I'm going to sleep with my butt cheeks tightly clenched until Friday."

Other progressives tally wins in Puget Sound region

In other Seattle results, Seattle's Republican city attorney Ann Davison, who worked to prosecute people for crimes of poverty, was trounced by Erika Evans, who led with 62% of the vote over Davison's 37%.

Seattle city council member Sara Nelson, known for her tough-on-crime, "I am now ending public comment" approach to governance, was soundly defeated by Dionne Foster, for a city-wide seat, 58 to 42 percent. Eddie Lin, a city attorney, won the race to represent the city's diverse south-end district 2, and progressive Alexis Mercedes Rinck handily won her citywide seat. Overall, the Seattle's pro-cop, conservative majority on the council faced a huge setback in this election.

The race for King County executive was tight, but Girmay Zahilay holds a narrow, 50% to 48% lead over Claudia Balducci in a race that, blissfully, has two extremely qualified candidates.

In the race for Tacoma mayor, city council member and pro-density, pro-transit candidate Anders Ibsen was leading John Hines 53% to 46%.

In Burien, a community south of Seattle that has been embroiled in a debate over making being homeless a crime, progressive candidates likely secured a new majority on the city council.

In a bellweather swing legislative district in Bremerton, Democratic state senator Deb Krishnadasan is comfortably leading a Republican challenger in a race that saw $4 million in campaign spending, Washington State Standard reports.

Oh, and let's not leave out Portland, which held a special election for a $456 million, 5-year parks levy to fund stuff like playgrounds and trees and soccer fields. The levy passed, says the Portland Mercury. The parks, and Portland, still are not burning.

Cascadia hit by record government shutdown

OPB reports that federal workers across the Pacific Northwest are struggling as paychecks remain on hold during the federal government shutdown, now the longest in US history. Visits to food banks in Cascadia are up dramatically as the Trump regime insists it will cut some SNAP food benefits despite court rulings, KUOW reports.

Yesterday, I worked with the organization Cascadia Democratic Action to deliver more than 2,000 pounds of food to the Rainier Valley Food Bank and Jewish Family Service food bank. Thanks to all who donated and who volunteered – I'll write about our SNAP to Action food drive later this week.

Thanks for reading! --Andrew