Landslide in Seattle

Voters in the famously left-leaning city of Seattle rejected the defund/woke candidates by wide margins in yesterday’s local election. Alec Regimbal has this story for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

In the race to become Seattle’s next mayor, former Seattle City Council President Bruce Harrell is triumphing over M. Lorena González, the council’s current president.

Harrell’s decision to appeal to residents who are fed up with homelessness, as well as the way he distanced himself from a city council that vowed to cut the police budget in half last year, appears to have paid off. Harrell has secured 84,975 votes — 65% — while González has won 46,046 votes, just 35%.

Wow. A 2-to-1 landslide in a bastion of progressiveness.

But it’s not just the mayor’s race. Seattle elects its city attorney. This race is particularly important to the controversy over prosecution for misdemeanors. Felonies are prosecuted by the King County District Attorney. From the office’s website:

The Criminal Division prosecutes misdemeanors, gross misdemeanors and traffic infractions in Seattle Municipal Court. The types of cases prosecuted by the Criminal Division include driving under the influence (DUI), misdemeanor assault, misdemeanor domestic violence, misdemeanor theft, and trespassing.

And who do Seattle voters want in charge of this function?

In what many saw as this year’s most hotly contested local race, self-proclaimed Republican Ann Davison is trouncing abolitionist candidate Nicole Thomas-Kennedy to become Seattle’s next city attorney.

Thomas-Kennedy’s projected loss suggests that, contrary to popular belief, Seattle progressives may not have a stranglehold on local politics. The city’s far-left faction expressed disgust at the idea of electing Davison, who they have described as a “Trump Republican.” But it appears that Thomas-Kennedy’s promise not to prosecute misdemeanor crimes and the inflammatory statements she made about police galvanized Seattle’s centrist democrats enough to potentially hand Davison the win.

Davison has received 74,549 votes — 58% — while Thomas-Kennedy has won 52,419, or 41%.

Not just a moderate liberal, but an actual Republican is more palatable to Seattle voters than a candidate who says she won’t prosecute misdemeanors, and by a 17% margin. Perhaps Seattle voters are aware of the disastrous quality-of-life consequences that successive “woke” prosecutors have caused in San Francisco.

But wait, there’s more.

In the race for the Position 9 seat — which was vacated by M. Lorena González when she decided to run for mayor — Fremont Brewing co-founder Sara Nelson is drubbing attorney and nonprofit director Nikkita Oliver to win the open spot. Nelson has won 77,581 votes — 60% — while Oliver has won 50,762, or 39%.

The P-I story does not say what the main issues were in that race, so we turn to this story by Nina Shapiro in the Seattle Times (emphasis added):

Oliver, an executive director of a nonprofit, lawyer and prominent anti-racism activist, advocated policies to lift marginalized communities. They had 39% of Tuesday’s initial vote count.

A resident of Rainier Beach and a former mayoral candidate, Oliver, 35, advocated ending restrictions on apartments in single-family neighborhoods throughout Seattle. Oliver also called for finding new revenue, like a possible city income tax, to create housing for homeless people while providing those in encampments with services like hygiene stations. Oliver also has pushed to defund police by 50%.

Nelson, 55, co-founder of Fremont Brewing and a onetime aide to former City Councilmember Richard Conlin, argued the council is on the wrong path, diverted from providing basic services by left-wing movement building.

Living in Green Lake and running for the council for the second time, Nelson promoted helping small businesses recover from the pandemic, gradually increasing density in single-family neighborhoods and removing homeless encampments in public spaces with a phased approach. She said she wanted a plan, more accountability and better data on homelessness before committing to new revenue. She also opposed defunding police.

I will hoist a glass to the brewer’s victory and the defunding movement’s defeat.

The results in Seattle, like those in Minneapolis noted in yesterday’s post, are strongly encouraging. After being lost in the wilderness in recent years, it appears the country is finding its way back to common sense on crime.