By Erica C. Barnett
Seattle City Councilmember Tanya Woo, appointed to the citywide Position 8 seat last year after narrowly losing the race for District 2 to incumbent Tammy Morales, trailed behind progressive challenger Alexis Mercedes Rinck on election night, with 41.4 percent of the vote to Rinck’s 46.6.
Rinck’s vote total would likely be higher in a (purely theoretical) one-on-one contest, because the other challengers—including transit advocate Saunatina Sanchez, who pulled 4.4 percent and ended the night in third—are also progressive, which means their supporters are more likely to back Rinck in the general election.
Woo, who has not proposed any substantive legislation in her short time in office, raised slightly more money than Rinck (around $225,000 to Rinck’s $192,000). Rinck received the endorsements of every local Democratic group, while Woo was supported by seven of her council colleagues–including the five newcomers elected last year and not including Morales, who’s supporting Rinck.
Historically, progressive candidates gain several points after election night as later ballots, generally from younger and more progressive voters, trail in. If the results for Woo and Rinck moved the exact same amount as last year’s Woo/Morales primary results, we could expect to see a final result of Rinck in the lead with 50.74 percent and Woo trailing at 38.55.
Obviously, there are many factors that shape any individual election. And it’s certainly conceivable that Woo and her supporters could rally between now and November. On the other hand, Presidential election years tend to produce high turnout, and in Seattle, that typically means more of those younger and more progressive voters, who don’t always vote in local elections.
With such a slim record and so little time on the council, it’s difficult to know why Woo ended up with such a limp result. One reason could be simply that Rinck has a better ground game—she seems to be damn near everywhere, and her social media presence has been consistently strong. Rinck’s energetic campaign could be fueling enthusiasm that Woo just can’t muster in a citywide race; her campaign against Morales, remember, was based mostly on her work as a neighborhood activist in Chinatown, which makes sense for a district race but doesn’t necessarily translate to citywide support.
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It’s also conceivable that even-year voters are just dramatically more left-leaning than the people who vote in odd years—that if this election was happening in 2025, the results would be reversed. If so, it’s a sign that when more people vote in local races, the city gets more progressive results. Which, if true, means that we really should move to even-year elections, so that the people we elect to local office better represent the views of the entire electorate.
Another theory, the one I tend to believe, is that the new city council majority is overshooting their shot—treating their mostly narrow victories in 2023 as a massive mandate for throwback policies like criminalizing sex work, arresting drug users, banishing marginalized people from large swaths of the city, and using jail as a first-resort response to social problems.
Certainly, there’s a large constituency for this approach. There always has been, even during the era now misremembered as the time when everybody wanted to defund the police. People who want to create 200-square-block no-go zones for sex workers were not generally advocating for super-progressive policies four years ago just because it briefly became important for elected officials to say “Black Lives Matter.”
But I’m not sure those voters are thrilled with what they got for their votes—a council that appears anti-democratic, has failed to propose substantive policies that would meaningfully address any of the stuff they claim to be concerned about, including addiction, sex trafficking, and “disorderly” homeless people in public view.
Maybe I’m wrong; maybe that was the mandate, and this election is the anomaly. But… did you see that meeting where the council kicked everybody out so they could go huddle in their offices? They looked pretty scared of the public to me. Maybe they’re starting to wonder if their retro policies are quite as popular as they assumed.
“the new city council majority is overshooting their shot—treating their mostly narrow victories in 2023 as a massive mandate”
I agree with this but based on the issues cited and I don’t think its because as Erica recently said on a podast with Sandeep “its a do nothing council”– I think its because the council IS acting…on gig worker protections, on minimum wage guarantees for restaurant workers, and on tenants rights protections (in a city that, until those were adopted, was comically, laughably HORRENDOUS on tenant protections of any sort.
If the Council had focused on public safety, encampments, 3rd avenue, I suspect Tuesday would have been very different.
I agree with you Erica. The current City Council has gone rogue. The majority are misreading the room: last year’s election was a voters’ correction, not a coup. Plus it’s obvious that the members who make up the majority simply don’t know what they’re doing, and lack the political charisma to make up for their incompetence.
It’s an undemocratic council because Publicola doesn’t like it? So your saying our votes didn’t count? Shame on you and Tanya Woo for City Council!
Erica calls their behavior anti-democratic because they’re resisting letting the public decide on this issue. Refusing to let something go to ballot because you don’t like the likely result of the vote, is an undemocratic action. I guess they’re hoping to wait for a lower-turnout election (like the one that elected them).