Establishment Democrats Tried to Derail Katie Wilson’s Campaign—and Failed

After a bitter fight that lasted a week after Election Day, Katie Wilson is expected to be Seattle’s next mayor. Wilson, a small-S socialist, built her campaign on progressive populism and won the support of Gen Z and millennial voters—voters who graduated with massive college debt, who weathered a disastrous job market and an even worse scramble for housing, who don’t know how they can afford to pay for child care on top of their student loans, who know what it’s like to buy street clothes at Goodwill, and who had little of interest in retaining Seattle’s business-backed incumbent Mayor Bruce Harrell.

Nine months ago, Katie Wilson wasn’t even considering running for elected office. Harrell had won support from labor, business, mainstream Democrats, including Gov. Bob Ferguson, and progressive Democrats, including Pramila Jayapal. There was no alternative to Harrell, who was at best a transactional politician who leaned into progressive initiatives when it suited him.

But it was a progressive initiative fought by Harrell, at the behest of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, Amazon and Microsoft, that set the stage for Katie’s entry and Harrell’s defeat. This initiative created a corporate excess compensation tax to fund social, economically integrated, and affordable housing in Seattle. Harrell’s face was plastered on every campaign handout opposing the initiative. After all votes were counted, the initiative passed with a margin of 26 percent.

The door opened and Katie entered. She had just returned from another of her successful minimum wage campaigns in suburban Seattle, this one winning with 58 percent yes. For the past 15 years, Katie has led efforts for free employer-sponsored bus passes, free buses for children, and subsidized buses for people with disabilities. Wilson envisioned and then led the Trump-Proof Seattle campaign immediately after Trump’s first election, which resulted in the city council’s unanimous support for a Seattle income tax (including a yes vote from Bruce Harrell). She cajoled the City Council into enacting a progressive payroll tax on the city’s largest businesses.

This may sound like the story of a progressive politics enthusiast. It is. But that’s not enough to win. Katie has also touched the lives and hearts of Seattle voters, especially those in the precariat, through her grassroots work. Voters were drawn to Wilson not for his elegance or charisma, but for the opposite: his authenticity, his thoughtfulness, his keen political wit, even his awkwardness. That’s what made her such an attractive candidate, and it’s also why, when establishment Democrats launched attacks on her candidacy, they failed.

But they certainly tried: After Wilson handily won the August primary, Harrell’s campaign turned negative, pushing the narrative that Wilson was an inexperienced outsider, unfit for public office. In an election where voters wanted to see progressive change, it was the only thing that seemed to hold, but not enough. Indeed, many voters are fed up with experienced politicians.

Harrell also moved left after the primary, proposing to exempt small and medium-sized businesses from Seattle’s gross receipts tax and to increase that tax for businesses with revenues above $10 million. He was the ultimate transactional candidate, following voters for their votes, not their hearts.

The Harrell campaign believed that Wilson’s parents helped pay for her child’s daycare. For millennials, this only made Wilson’s appeal more obvious. There was no need for the Harrell campaign to tell them that Wilson absolutely needed help paying for child care, which is too expensive for everyone, and that she might have reason to do something at City Hall.

True to the Pacific Northwest’s slow, process-based politics, millennial voting procrastination, and our robust mail-in voting system, Wilson’s victory was no given last Tuesday. Initially, Harrell took the lead, suggesting that his offensive ads had gained some support from the more centrist voters who typically cast ballots as early as possible in Seattle elections.

But as late ballots arrived in the days that followed, ballots counted exceeded 55 percent of registered voters (compared to 42 percent in New York’s mayoral election). Wilson’s vote share increased. It became clear Tuesday that young people in Seattle, marching to the polls, had stood up and voted.