Davison's probable victory is a blot on an otherwise encouraging set of results. We'll need to watch her closely to make sure that Trumpist policies don't get an inroad at City Hall.

People are sick of the tents and the camps and the zombie addicts. Clean sweep.

Perhaps you folks at the Stranger should consider whether racing to become as "Progressive" as possible loses more votes than it gains. Also consider as obstructionist as Manchin is, it is very unlikely a Progressive would win West Virginia. And finally, eliminating the filibuster may not look so good if Republicans take the Senate as looks pretty likely at this point. Reality can be harsh.

At last, the era of pairing Trump with Republican is slipping away for democrats.

Glenn Youngkin is a superstar ushering in a new era of classic Republican values and integrity.

Also having a bad night: The Stranger's ridiculously blithe assertions that their endorsements are "legally binding."

It’s almost like words and promises create expectations. Like, what’s the actual plan and concrete steps to achieving an alternative if we “defund” the police? If I work 50 hours a week to buy a single family home, I might pay attention when the pols say this is racist and threaten to change zoning (with zero evidence this creates affordable housing BTW). Theory hour is over. Time to get pragmatic about the services we provide to our residents. City government can only do so much in the face of capitalism, state law, and now, voters who hunger for more than word salad. Progressives, pivot!

I feel like with this 2021 ballot local voters were given a test. The test was, if you're given a bunch of bad choices, can you make the LESS bad choice? From my own narrow perspective, it looks like Seattle voters passed that test.

Between the four city races and the county executive race, there was only one race where I voted for the candidate who was more progressive (by conventional wisdom), and that was Mosqueda. (It's weird to think that Dow is somehow considered the less progressive candidate, with all he's accomplished.) It looks like my votes track exactly with the likely outcomes. Thank you, local voters.

And yet, this morning, I'm not so much happy as relieved. I mean, there were some bad choices I had to make. And no, Dow certainly wasn't one of them.

KEK55 @3: "And finally, eliminating the filibuster may not look so good if Republicans take the Senate as looks pretty likely at this point. Reality can be harsh."

This is a common misperception. The filibuster is an anti-democracy, anti-government-can-work measure. Its harm to Democrats far, far outweighs its benefit to Republicans. Also, the simple fact is that the things Republicans want typically don't require overcoming a filibuster. They care about cutting taxes, and then they make a show about caring about the things their base cares about.

Oh, and setting aside its outcomes for good or bad, the simple fact is that the filibuster is wrong, and its current incarnation is a relatively recent invention, just a few decades old.

Apparently there are a lot of people in Seattle who love their single-family zoning, want the homeless out of sight, and don't see (or else don't care about) the contradiction between the two. Very American.

McAuliffe (and Clinton) showed that you can't just run against Trump. You have to be for something or you're not going to get people to show up. On the other hand, maybe McAuliffe was a shitty candidate. He got almost exactly the same percentage of the vote in 202 that he did in 2013--it's just that in 2013 a third party candidate split the conservative vote.

My totally unprofessional hot takes:
Defund the police is a loser of a slogan. For FSM's sake, progressives, shut the hell up about that and start talking about ways that you use social services to save money and reduce police response to non-emergency situations. Yes, it's the same thing, but it's a way better framing.
Democrats need an effective response to the anti-CRT crap the Republicans are pushing.
Democrats need an effective message about what they are for.
Democrats need to get off their asses and pass both the infrastructure bill and BBB.
Democrats need to stop complaining about all of the things they didn't get in BBB and start talking up how great it is.
There are times when Democrats should use the "X is a tool of Trump" slogans. But not in every case that their opponent has an R next to their name.

No doubt arresting people for shoplifting and moving encampments from one block to the next will fix all our problems

Pete Holmes gets the last laugh.

McAuliffe was a turd candidate. Everyone is tired of the clinton brand. And he stood for nothing. The do-lessness of the Dem Congress didnt do him any favors, but enough with the clintonistas. God forbid the DNCC invest in some new blood.

The real story nationwide is the shockingly poor voter turnout even for an off-year election, especially in highly educated, vote-by-mail, true blue Seattle.

This isn’t just another “dumbass Millennials and Gen Zers can’t stop TikToking long enough to vote” problem, this is a catastrophic democratic failure that enabled a racist backlash guaranteed to doom us if repeated in 2022 and 2024.

Countless people have simply given up, and you don’t need a PhD in history to know what happens when democratic societies collapse.

@10: Meth causes homelessness, not zoning.

@14 It's a start.

@1 What Trumpist policies are you concerned about? Prosecuting people for shoplifting and assault? I'd honestly love to know what it is you think Davison could do as city atty to further the Trump agenda especially since she doesn't support Trump and voted for Biden. Maybe its time to give up the bogeyman and start focusing on solving our public safety crisis.

@4 "Glenn Youngkin is a superstar ushering in a new era of classic Republican values and integrity."

Yes, tax cuts for businesses and the rich which have never been proven to create jobs. What a classic! Government intervention into your uterus, woohoo! Not allowing businesses to make their own decisions regarding vaccines mandates, despite being pro-business and pro-life.

What a nice return to the quiet hypocrisy and absurdity of the GOP.

@20, it's really not. It's theater.

Ah Democracy is going to die when we lose! How many times are you going to use that one.

I havent been paying much attention to the Seattle City Attorney but where is the Trump stuff coming from? It says she voted for Obama, Obama, Clinton and Biden.

@8 2017-2021 Senate Dems used the filibuster more than any other minority party in the history of the US.

@14 Brent, I know your heart is in the right place, but you're a prime example of a left-winger who hasn't learned a thing from any of this. You refuse to listen or understand. You're just going to double-down and keep believing what you want to believe, and keep making the same mistakes.

Lorena "KYS" Gonzalez thought she had it in the bag when she showed up to the police protests last year. Whoops!
NT "eat covid-laced shit and die" K thought she could run on a platform of vitriolic mean tweets and all the cool kids would vote for her. Whoops!

Now would be a good time for Biden to roll-out dat student-debt relief. Hasn't even been president a year and he's already middling.

@22: Oh dear. I should have anticipated that you'd be chiming in with such astute wit after your morning jog and cappuccino.

@18 Maybe turnout was low in WA, but VA turnout was about 700K higher than the 2017 Governor race.

@25 Sure. Decades of arresting and jailing people for petty crimes hasn't worked. Sweeping camps just for them to relocate hasn't worked. Giving more money to the police hasn't made us safer. But by golly it just might work this time.

NTK is right that misdemeanor prosecutions disproportionally affect the poor and POC. But, goddamit I and everyone I know is sick and tired of having our cars regularly broken into and anything not bolted to the ground being stolen. Crazies with knives stabbing random people on the sidewalk doesn't help the cause of reform either.
Yes, yes, I know that the city attorney doesn't change that, and that these problems are complicated but announcing that petty thieves won't even be prosecuted is just a bridge too far. I don't know anyone who was excited for any of the candidates in this one.

@18 OA, I think that's spot on.

The citizenry has given up - they know the entire political system is corrupt and broken, and there's almost nothing they can do about it. It's like the nation is now in a black hole and we're getting sucked into oblivion whether we like it or not.

Predictably disappointing results. At least with the cyclical sweeps, criminalised poverty, and housing shortages imposed by limits on housing density via zoning renewing their status quo memberships progressives will have an easy time copy and pasting their platforms for the next round, since nothing will have gotten better in the meantime.

@27, I prefer brisk walks and cold brew.

Expanding on @21,Seattle City Attorney is a pretty small-potatoes job when it comes to local government. It's mostly about managing a civil division that is smaller than many of the local law firms (which, by the way, is something well beyond NTK's skill set). What does @1 think is going to happen? Davison is going to detain migrants at the Southern border, start a trade war with China, and destabilize the Middle East?

@29, I'd much rather see real programs and efforts to reduce crime, but they aren't there and the city attorney isn't even the one to implement them. Talk to the council and get that going, then we can talk about not prosecuting misdemeanors.
Right now, I'd rather have the shit head that breaks two dozen car windows a night in jail for a night or two then out on the street breaking into cars. Would I rather have a real program that turns the shit head into a non thieving person? Of course, but we don't have that yet so I'll settle for a couple nights without a shit head stealing stuff and breaking windows.

@32 I hate to be the one to break it to you, but changing zoning won't house poor people. That is just a dumb talking point that has no basis in reality. Go take a walk around any neighborhood currently zoned for multi-unit housing: just about every construction project you'll see will be a luxury town-home development that will list each unit for at least $650,000 (and sell for over $700,000).

Plus, what do you think will happen if single-family zoning is eliminated? Thousands of homeowners will tear down their houses and put up low-income housing? Because unless that happens (spoiler: it won't), changing zoning won't have any immediate effect on density. It would take decades for existing SFH to turn over and be redeveloped in sufficient numbers to achieve a notable increase in density.

The leftist wing nuts got their asses handed to them last night. Their agenda of abolishing the police, legalizing crime, and giving drug addicts agency to destroy the city reads like an Onion article or Orwellian novel. If it weren’t for this nonsense, the Democrats would have large majorities in Congress to pass a liberal agenda. The fringe left is to blame not Manchin. Hopefully this is a wake up call to to reign in extremism.

"Turnout" in a vote-by-mail election? Elections here are no longer about getting people to the polling booth on a drizzly November day. Candidates merely have to get their followers to focus for a few minutes on filling out and mailing in their ballots, at some point during the three weeks it's sitting on their credenza or kitchen table. Clearly, some candidates fell short of the mark.

We desperately need authentic progressive ideals to be implemented to be successful in dealing with climate, threats to democracy and justice. We won't get anywhere with the caliber of progressive politicians we've had so far in recent Seattle history. Rote PC talk-talk, head-nodding rhetoric and insufferable group self-congratulation aren't substantial, and have all the credibility of Joel Connolly's harrumphing about politeness. Time for smart politics.

I don't expect any contrition from The Stranger but not outlandish to assume that their endorsement of Thomas Kennedy had a good deal to do with her victory in the primary. Now we are stuck with Sidran redux. And before the screechers jump in here: I voted for the fringey, 'are you really serious?' candidate (who I suspect was not really serious, and probably somewhat stunned that she won the primary). Certainly not going to vote for a Republican. Oh, yeah and also there was a perfectly capable progressive running in the primary for the council seat that Nelson has apparently claimed. And, once again screechers, I voted for Oliver, even in spite of the whiff of flakiness they always have, and continue, to exude.

@38 surprisingly, I also support housing being made more affordable/accessible alongside just building more of it, although building more housing will make it more affordable overall. That's just a math fact.

Stating that increasing housing density takes a long time is just another reason to remove the restrictive zoning that prevents this increase as soon as possible so that the process can begin. The fact that the apartments being built are expensive is due to the demand relative to the short supply, which would diminish as housing stock increased. Two birds, one stone, simple math.

I enjoyed that doom jazz.

@45 "The fact that the apartments being built are expensive is due to the demand relative to the short supply, which would diminish as housing stock increased."

Seattle has been one of the leading metro areas in new apartment construction for most of the past two decades. Housing is still expensive, and we are still housing thousands of persons with substance abuse problems and untreated mental illness in the city's parks and greenspaces. It's possible your simplistic view of supply and demand might be missing a few variables.

Personally, I think a market-based solution like changing zoning laws in the hope for-profit developers will suddenly decide to build low-income housing are dumb. We should be building low income housing, not hoping wealthy developers will do it for us.

The main lesson here for future progressive candidates is that takes a majority of voters to elect a candidate. If everybody you talk to agrees with you 100% of the time, chances are you're about to lose.

@53: Na, The Stranger remains popular and annoying in Seattle media - cementing its relevancy.

With the brief exception of Biden's slogan 'Forever War' - only to end in the messy collapse in Afghanistan, the Democrats have proven once again how abysmally bad they are at messaging.
The GOP wins again and again on racial resentment and cultural issues, while the billionaire class pirates their riches to the tax haven de jour. Oh well.

Sick of the choices i had.

Sick of the choices I made.

Sick of wading thru the flea market of one-note interpretations, here and everywhere.

Democracy is in a world o' hurt, and will find no safe harbor with these journalists ... or these voters.

I've been playing a new video game for the past few nights so I haven't been paying attention to any of this election stuff...

I assume the republicans once again duped their retard followers into voting in favor of the ultra wealthy who piss all over said followers?

Haha! Just kidding! I don't assume that's what happened, I'm sure of it.

Republicans... naïve retards one and all! Peace out gents!

@63,

It's far and away the most popular left wing and alternative publication in a city of four million people with a pronounced left wing bias. It remains popular regardless of whether or not you agree with their politics..

@68,

It's an online publication. And I'm not even sure they've announced a permanent cessation of the paper edition, though I'd not be surprised if this were the case. The Willamette Week is still putting out a paper down here in Portland, which I appreciate. In addition to still enjoying an occasional old fashioned read, they've a pretty good crossword.

It should be pretty easy to get site hit numbers for both this site and Crosscut to do a comparison. I used to work a job that entailed tracking such numbers for developers and we used a publicly accessible site for doing so, though I couldn't find it just now. I'd actually bet on the stranger, but could be wrong.

@68 Alexa.com shows a site ranking for the stranger somewhere between mynorthwest and crosscut, with crosscut having the lowest ranking of the three. I believe the ranking as based on a number of factors such as site visits, engagement, time on site, bounce rate, etc.
looking at overlap, crosscut shares many readers with komo while the stranger apparently shares many of the same audience as mynorthwest. not based entirely on if a user of mynorthwest then visited the stranger. I thought that interesting. the supporters of one site VS the other maybe read each other's fav site to read the stories and get outraged I guess, idk.

@70 I'd ask if they were excited about atl winning the championship, but they seem like the type who would go into a lengthy rage abou the stadium cost and it not even being in the city anyway, etc. it seems like they already have some anger this morning, I'll just let that rest. a Cuban took home mvp for a bunch of "rednecks", there's an easy joke in there somewhere but I don't feel like they could do it without busting out the antiquated "r" insult again and embarrassing themselves.

@71,

Thanks. Regardless of any of the finite numbers and/or relative popularity, the fact is that Stranger remains popular and isn't dying anytime soon. And @53 is a pathetic bitch who's gonna be stuck reading the filthy rag for this rest of his miserable and godforsaken fucking life.

@63: Well, if you know about the frequency of my commentary then you're validating the popularity of the media outlet you're reading right now. Is your mind free of garbage enough to realize that?

@66,

I don't know anything about the dem candidates in Seattle or how they did or anything. All I'm saying is the wealthy have republican voters so confused they wouldn't know how to pour piss out of a boot with instructions written on the heel.

From the looks of the news around the country this morning, the wealthy succeeded once again in getting those idiots to support them over their own interests. Next they'll probably get them to cut their own education funding again, lol!!

@70,

Actually, I no longer live in Georgia! Just sold my place a few weeks back and moved West (though still not Seattle).

@72... um, the first 72, 420blazit,

Not a baseball fan. Didn't even know the world series was going on until I saw some news on it last night. But cool for ATL I suppose.

Angry? I'm not angry at all. I find this all very hilarious tbh! Dumb ass republican voters keep digging themselves deeper and deeper into holes and can't figure out how to get out, while the wealthy yell at them "No, you've got to dig UP!" lol!!

Sorry being called a retard upsets retards like you. Actually, scratch that. I'm not sorry. Toodles now!

@19- you’re both right. Lots of the people sleeping in the parks are there because they’re tweakers or other varieties of addict, and or deeply mentally ill. And lots of the other, less visible homeless are couch surfing or living in their cars because there isn’t housing they can afford. Building more apartments would at least help with the second group. And maybe it is time we made it clear that we’re not going to accept responsibility for the indigent population from the rest of the state/country.

@76 never change, urgutha. you fucking trashcan, denigrating the mentally ill. you've been living by the seething "fuck Biden" crowd too long down south and you are now as toxic as them. yup, you are a piece of shit trashcan just like the fuck Biden crowd in your state, you miserable human.

america inc llc
the proudly un-
mis- and mal-in-
formed & Lovin' it!

Go sports Teams!

Someone should tell that idiot Goldy, that the current occupants of Seattle City Council seats ONE to SEVEN were elected in 2019. Maybe dimwitted Goldy doesn't know that 2019 was an odd numbered year.