Left-wing activist Katie Wilson emerged as the top vote-getter in Seattle’s mayoral primary, edging out incumbent Democrat Mayor Bruce Harrell.
Wilson is co-founder of the Transit Riders Union and a former writer for The Stranger newspaper. She secured 46.21% of the vote in the nonpartisan contest, compared to Harrell’s 44.86%, with the two advancing to the November general election under Seattle’s top-two primary system.
Harrell, who has been mayor since 2022, is widely seen as a more moderate Democrat, while Wilson’s is being compared to Zohran Mamdani, the socialist nominee who won New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary this summer.
Even though they are both Democrats, Wilson has the support of the King County Democratic Party and several Democratic district committees. Her campaign is centered on taxing the rich, housing, transportation, and progressive governance.
A June op-ed in The Urbanist called Wilson “a progressive who would break a long run of timid centrist leadership” in Seattle, comparing her rise to that of Mamdani and Minneapolis socialist candidate Omar Fateh.
Like those candidates, Wilson is seen as a challenge from the Left to establishment Democrats.
While Harrell maintains a base of support among more centrist voters and has overseen a relatively stable term during a tumultuous time for the city, he has faced criticism from both the right and the left. Conservatives blasted him for describing a Christian concert and pro-life event in the city as an “extreme right-wing rally.”
Still, a victory in November would make Harrell Seattle’s first two-term mayor since Greg Nickels left office in 2009.
Tuesday’s primary also delivered setbacks for other incumbents. Republican City Attorney Ann Davison trailed progressive challenger Erika Evans, a former federal prosecutor, in her re-election bid. Evans left the US Attorney’s Office after President Trump’s second-term immigration policies took effect, and she has sharply criticized Davison’s tough-on-crime stance. Evans supports a public health and social service-based approach to crime, including expansion of the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program.
A key message of Evans’ campaign, as explained by The Stranger, has been that Davison is “Not Like Us,” highlighting the city attorney’s party affiliation in a city where Republicans are a minority.
Wilson’s strong showing comes amid a series of left-wing primary wins in Democratic strongholds, including Mamdani’s victory in New York and the July endorsement of socialist Omar Fateh over incumbent Mayor Jacob Frey in Minneapolis by the local Democratic Party. In Anchorage, the pattern is the same: MayorSuzanne LaFrance, who changed her affiliation to undeclared, is the Democrats’ candidate.
Seattle, like Anchorage, was built by rational people who built great cities.
Then this generation passed. What replaced it was “adults” with a mental age of 12 or 13. These adults, with a mental age and reasoning skills of a child, set about destroying all the good work the previous generations accomplished.
These losers think high taxes are good, and drug use, especially pot, is great. Chaos now rules, and drugged up morons destroy beautiful parks, and the decent people flee.
Alaska needs to respect federal law which lists pot as a schedule one drug under the Controlled Substances Act. When will the governor and legislature act like adults and realize “legalization” was a gigantic failure?
Maybe they just don’t care. Alaska’s kids are now at the bottom of the 50 states for performance. Only 20 percent of our kids can even read when they are in the forth grade.
Let’s face it. Alaska is a failed state. 250,000 Alaskans- about a third of the population- on the dole.
Truth!
Better ban alcohol too, since it was way more negative effects on individuals and society in general, than cannabis.
I love it when supposed “conservatives” call for more government to control individual choices.
Could not happen to a nicer bunch of leftists.
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Until the left has to suffer the consequences of their actions, they will never learn. Hopefully, this will force them to learn the folly of their beliefs. But, for some reason, I doubt it.
You know, it’s interesting that these self proclaimed ‘radicals’ who always want to ‘strike a blow’ for the ‘suffering oppressed’ are enivtably white-bread, middle/upper class kids, who clearly never had a day of suffering in their whole lives. Much less a day of physical labor!
“…are enivtably white-bread, middle/upper class kids, who clearly never had a day of suffering in their whole lives.”
Just like Karl Marx.
It’s what they were taught by their hippy, white-bread, middle/upper class teachers.
They “evaded” the Vietnam war by going to college & became the teachers of our children.
Working people & the poor are much more grounded in reality.
Seattle has not suffered enough yet. Only when they hit rock bottom will the turn begin. Or not.
Let Seattle, NYC, California, and Portland burn.
Problem is, they’ll bring that insanity here next.
When LaFrance dumps the democrat label, that should tell you something.
Lots of money to be made with homelessness, especially for the contractors.
Voters want change, Seattle has not addressed problems with homelessness and cost of living
And, you think this “change” will make an improvement? I can only assume you do based on your comment.
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Perhaps you missed history in HS, but in reality (come on over here, Frank. We have cookies!) more government control never solves the problem. History is abundantly clear on this topic.
Homeless people want “change”, too, given to them to spend on more Drugs, like the hallucinogenic ones you’re on , Frank
So let me get this straight, Socialism will save Democracy while the will of majority of the people will destroy it?
Good the more chaos the better.
Let Rome burn; they voted for it.
It’s pretty mind-blowing to learn Seattle has been run by Democrats they considered moderate, and they want to go even harder left.
The Overton window moves. And, yes. The Seattle population thought their elected officials were moderate.