July 18, 2025
She’s operating on a populist financial message that places affordability of care at its coronary heart and mobilized younger grassroots organizers.
Zohran Mamdani’s victory wasn’t a fluke. Proper now, it’s being constructed upon in Seattle, three time zones from the Huge Apple. Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell has been gliding alongside a path towards reelection. He has garnered the support of builders and tech oligarchs. All of the opinion leaders are alongside for the journey with the mayor. In fact, he’s going to win.
However weirdly, a vote of the folks has challenged that knowledge. Final 12 months, Seattle housing activists had gathered signatures for the Metropolis Council to go a tax on excess compensation to fund social housing. The tax, to be paid by employers, levies a 5 p.c tax on particular person compensation better than $1 million. Elevating $60 million, and with bonding, it will allow the manufacturing of 1000’s of economically built-in housing items wherein no tenants can pay greater than 30 p.c of their revenue in lease.
The Metropolis Council set a vote on this measure for February 11, anticipating a low and conservative turnout. The council additionally put a competing measure on the ballot, which took $10 million from an current fund for low-income housing to construct just a few items of social housing.
The company group, led by Amazon and Microsoft, poured lots of of 1000’s of {dollars} into an opposition marketing campaign. Mayor Harrell obtained into the act, along with his face on all of the opposition literature. The die appeared to be solid for a victory of the established order over precise social progress. Solely it wasn’t. The election resulted in a 26-point victory for social housing over the mayor’s proposal.
That obtained Katie Wilson, the founder and normal secretary of Seattle’s Transit Riders Union, to rethink the 2025 elections. Katie had already launched the Transit Riders Union, gaining free transit for varsity children and low-income folks. She organized profitable minimum-wage campaigns in Seattle suburbs. She developed the Jump Start tax, a tax on employers when particular person compensation exceeds $189,371. With out this tax, Seattle would have been savaged with cuts in public providers.
So Katie determined it was a great time to grow to be mayor, to achieve the facility progressives want to remodel our metropolis. She embodies the insurance policies and hopes and desires of most of us in Seattle who can’t work out learn how to pay for childcare and lease will increase and healthcare, or these of us who acknowledge and need to present the options for these points.
Present Difficulty
Katie is a frontrunner and a member of the precariat. She rents a one-bedroom condo along with her husband and 2-year-old daughter. She doesn’t personal a automotive. She bicycles and takes mass transit throughout the town. She has lived on a shoestring funds for years. She understands childcare—she pays $2,000 a month for 3 days per week. Her marketing campaign focuses on increasing staff’ rights, funding household housing, making childcare reasonably priced and childcare compensation a ladder up, not a step down, and opening our parks and streets for strolling, recreating, bicycling, and simply plain being.
Does she have an opportunity? Seattle’s Democratic institution and main labor unions have proven their willingness to whine about, however not problem, the established order that leaves thousands and thousands of Washington residents with out-of-control healthcare prices, childcare prices, elder care prices, continuously rising tuition and underfunding of Okay-12 public training. However wait, the rank and file of each Democratic district group has endorsed Katie Wilson. May their lived experiences be nearer to the truth of Seattle residents?
New York has ranked-choice voting, which allows little-known candidates to grow to be reputable contenders, not worn out by plurality voting and dismissal by the facility elite. Whereas Seattle’s model of ranked-choice voting doesn’t start till 2027, we do have a singular Democracy Voucher system. Each resident can use 4 $25 vouchers for metropolis candidates. 600 residents should help these candidates. Then, each Seattle resident can contribute Democracy Vouchers to their most popular candidate. Via these Democracy Vouchers, Katie Wilson has mobilized super grassroots help.
This funding stasis may very well be upset if the company group builds an “unbiased” PAC to spice up Harrell. They’ve already polled for the “right” message. When that opposition marketing campaign begins, Katie will likely be enabled to boost much more funds from Democracy Vouchers. Her 1000’s of volunteers will likely be spurred on to get out each potential vote for her.
Has Seattle had sufficient of enterprise as common? We are going to get an inkling of this in lower than a month, within the August 5 major. Maybe, as Tracy Chapman sings, “lastly the tables are beginning to flip / Talkin’ ’bout a revolution…”
