City of Seattle

Sen. Joe Nguyen was elected to the Washington state Senate in 2018 and has worked as a senior program manager at Microsoft since 2013. His parents were refugees from Vietnam who came to White Center, where Nguyen was born and raised.

During Nguyen's time in the Legislature, he has been an advocate for Washington's families and equality, including playing a leadership role in fully funding the Working Families Tax Credit. In addition, he co-sponsored legislation to require anti-racism and equity training in public schools.

Nguyen is running for county executive to implement sweeping actions on the affordable housing crisis, to reform the criminal justice system with deep changes and accountability, and to make the state's economy work for everyone, not just the wealthiest people. In particular, Nguyen has proposed to make all transit services free to improve access and increase ridership. He also wants to leverage the new Regional Homelessness Authority to significantly scale up the building of affordable housing.

Nguyen has the support of elected leaders including state Reps. Kirsten Harris-Talley and David Hackney as well as state Sen. Bob Hasegawa and Treasurer Mike Pellicciotti. Nguyen is a progressive choice if you're looking for new leadership in the executive's office who will prioritize racial justice and systemic change.

Incumbent Rod Dembowski is an attorney who has represented District 1 since 2013. He has served in county affairs in several capacities, including as a pro bono counsel for the King County Superior Court, policy analyst in the county executive's office, and special prosecuting attorney.

If re-elected, Dembowski will continue working on sustainable human services funding, protecting the wild areas of the Puget Sound region, and looking for sustainable transit funding that improves transportation options. He also wants to expand housing with an eye on reducing commute times and increasing affordability for workers and families. While on the council, Dembowski has sponsored several progressive reforms, including giving grocery workers hazard pay in the pandemic and moving to make the sheriff an appointed position through the council and an advisory committee.

Challenging Dembowski is Kenmore resident and first-time candidate Sally Caverzan. According to her LinkedIn, she has worked as a long-term care social worker and is passionate about the environment. Her official voters' guide statement says that she would support instituting term limits for politicians, expanding mental health and addiction care with the creation of a King County regional treatment facility, and increasing supportive and permanent housing.

Dembowski has earned broad support from elected officials, reproductive health and environmental organizations, labor unions, and many more. We recommend Dembowski for King County Council in District 1 because of his proven track record of progressive leadership.

Incumbent Dave Upthegrove is running to bring his tri-part vision of King County to reality: health, jobs, and justice. He was the first openly gay state representative from outside Seattle in Washington history, and he went on to serve five terms in the Legislature before being elected to the King County Council in 2013.

Upthegrove has been a good council member and a solid advocate on several fronts in the county. He has been a leading voice on the council for environmental protections and climate action. As the chair of the King County Flood Control District Board of Supervisors, Upthegrove has worked to repair estuaries and has increased funding for repairing salmon habitats. 

If re-elected, Upthegrove hopes to continue making progress on police accountability by strengthening civilian oversight of the sheriff's office. Overall, Upthegrove has been a reliable vote on many issues but has not been as ambitious on some priorities as Olow plans to be. In particular, he frustrated housing and human service advocates with his opposition to a more ambitious Vets, Seniors, and Human Services Levy in 2017. During our interview, he said he has learned in recent years the value of year-round public engagement, instead of just before a major vote, and this community input has made him more willing to support tax increases if they fund valuable services. He has earned support from both labor and environmental groups in this race.

Incumbent and businesses consultant Ryan Calkins has successfully pushed the port in a more progressive direction during his first term. The current Port of Seattle commissioners have enacted several crucial reforms over the last few years, including ensuring at least a $15 minimum wage for airline catering workers and starting an accelerator mentorship program aimed at increasing access to contracting jobs for women- and minority-owned businesses.

If re-elected, Calkins states that he will continue to lead on mitigating the environmental impacts of the airport and port operations, promoting living wage jobs, improving immigration policy, and more. He has earned broad support from progressive and Democratic Party organizations.

His opponent is Norman Sigler, the owner of a consulting firm that focuses on finding diverse executive leadership. He serves as a precinct committee officer and is on the executive board of the King County Democrats Central Committee. Sigler wants to focus the port on environmental and economic justice, stating that he would invest port profits into improving neighboring communities. He states that he would promote a green economy, work to end systemic racism and keep the port honest, but does not have as detailed of a policy agenda. For example, in a forum for Port of Seattle candidates, Sigler stated that he would seek "putting mandates" on cruises and airlines, while Calkins specifically stated that he would support electric aviation, cleaner fuels, and high-speed ground transportation over short flights.

Calkins has an excellent record on the port and broad support from the progressive community. Calkins is the best choice for Port of Seattle, Position #1.

Hamdi Mohamed is running for Seattle Port Commissioner, Position 3 with a visionary agenda for the port that centers the needs of the workers, the environment, and the broader community. Mohamed's family fled Somalia and settled in the SeaTac region when she was 5 years old, with her mother working in the airport. Mohamed now works in the King County Office of Equity and Social Justice as a policy advisor and has helped manage the millions of dollars in COVID-19 relief funds that went to community-based organizations in King County.

As a resident of SeaTac, Mohamed lives in one of the communities most affected by airport pollution. Given that none of the current commissioners live in South King County, she seeks to bridge the gap between port policy and lived experience. She wants to expand the port's efforts to transition from fossil fuels to clean energy and restore habitats for salmon and orcas. Through greater direct partnership with workers, Mohamed wants to protect unions, provide pandemic relief, and prioritize workplace health.

In our interview with Mohamed, we were incredibly impressed by her drive to improve the lives of those who work and live near the port. One recent example of her accomplishment was her work with Beyoncé and Tina Knowles to provide free coronavirus testing and supplies to local organizations and working with the King County Immigrant and Refugee Commission to center language access in COVID-19 relief.

Mohamed is running against incumbent Stephanie Bowman, who has served on the commission since 2013. Bowman is proud of the port commission's progress on many fronts, including expanding youth job training opportunities in partnership with Seattle Public Schools, making stormwater improvements, and developing a noise insulation program for homes close to the airport. She states that one of her most important accomplishments was tripling the number of interns, many of which were youth of color from marginalized communities. If re-elected, Bowman would focus on improving economic opportunity at the port for all, including union members, women-owned businesses, lower-income workers, and more.

However, we were extremely disappointed when Bowman voted in 2015 to allow Shell Oil to base its arctic drilling operations in Seattle. In addition, she voted to use taxpayer money to file a legal challenge against SeaTac's $15 per hour minimum wage. In our interview with Bowman this year, she stated that she had been on the commission for less than six months before the wage increase vote, and believed that the council did not have the regulatory authority to make the change. On the Shell vote, she said that the commission was not transparent enough about it and that she would rather have ships come to Seattle ports where the environmental standards are the highest.

We believe Mohamed would be a stronger leader for progress at the port and would bring much-needed representation to the commission for South King County communities. We strongly support Hamdi Mohamed for her dedication to the community, her progressive agenda, and her backing by progressive organizations.

Incumbent Peter Steinbrueck is running for his second term in Position 4 on the Seattle Port Commission. He is an architect and former Seattle City Council member who has also served on the boards of many organizations in his history of public service, including the Washington Environmental Council, AIA Center for Civic Leadership, and Walkable Livable Communities Institute.

If re-elected, Steinbrueck has vowed to push the status quo on the economic, social, and political issues that matter to everyone in the region. In our interview, he stated that he supports a just and fair transition to clean fuels, one that includes electrification at the port as well as reducing ultrafine particulates and other kinds of pollution. He points to the port's job and apprenticeship programs, many of which offer opportunities to youth of color, women, and others as indicators of the types of policies he wants to continue moving forward. Environmentalism is his great passion, he states, and he believes that as the port recovers from the pandemic and evolves that he would continue to support climate justice at all levels, from workers' health, habitat restoration, and more.

Bruce Harrell is a lawyer who served on the Seattle City Council from 2007 to 2019. As a Black and Japanese American candidate who has worked in both the public and private sector, Harrell's campaign is focused on rebuilding relationships in city hall and in the community.

Harrell’s approach to addressing homelessness is overly reliant on private charity and nonprofit partnerships with the city. While well-intentioned, it's unlikely that charitable donations could close the huge gap in funding needed housing and services. He would create a program where residents could make tax-deductible donations to support homelessness outreach and would lead a campaign to increase philanthropic support for supportive housing.

Harrell stated in a candidate forum that he would sweep encampments from parks by January or February, but doesn't address the current reality that such sweeps simply push people elsewhere given the lack of housing options. He has promised there will be "consequences" if people are offered housing and don't take it, despite the fact that available housing can accommodate only a fraction of the city's homeless population.

Harrell is critical of the movement to redirect police funding into other strategies to promote community safety but does support increasing funding for non-law enforcement community wellness efforts. Especially compared to González's thoughtful plan, his approach seems more limited and personality-based. He stated that he would lead the Seattle Police Department in a culture change. The former council member intends to personally hire officers looking to be “change agents” and will not be afraid to critique officers. Harrell says that he will use data from the Race and Data Initiative to address discrimination in housing, policing, and more. Compared with González's plan, Harrell's proposal would lead to relatively modest reforms to policing in Seattle.

Similar to his plan on housing, Harrell intends to seek the support of foundations and the private sector to make health service programs more affordable. While he supports focusing development around light rail stations, he has not made any commitments on changing the zoning for affordable housing.

Like González, Harrell has served on the city council but he does not have a track record of being a force for change. His risky reliance on unstable private funding for affordable housing and homelessness and his personality-driven approach to police reform would be insufficient to solve two of the city's biggest challenges.

This is a complicated race for Seattle voters with two controversial candidates. After evaluating the candidates carefully, we believe that public defender Nicole Thomas-Kennedy is clearly the better choice.

Thomas-Kennedy is a managing partner in her own practice and she has volunteered with the National Lawyers Guild, completed pro bono defense work for local organizers, and worked extensively as a public defender.

There are many reasons to vote for Thomas-Kennedy. First, she is campaigning for common-sense justice reforms aimed at focusing on serious harms and crime prevention while stepping away from prosecuting people for poverty and mental illness. Second, her opponent switched parties to join Donald Trump’s party and run for lieutenant governor as a Republican in 2020. Third, Fox News and Tucker Carlson are attacking her for challenging their racist, conservative myths about reducing crime.

As a public defender, Thomas-Kennedy has witnessed many people get caught in the criminal legal system because of a lack of supportive social services. She wants to focus on using services to prevent crime by addressing the root causes and keep people from being entangled in the justice system. By emphasizing prevention, taxpayers improve safety and save money on law enforcement and the criminal justice system, which are by far the biggest costs of city and county governments.

There has been controversy about her use of the term abolition and some ill-advised tweets she posted after getting tear-gassed with her daughter during last year's protests. Although we don't condone her tweets, conservatives are drumming up fearful messaging about Thomas-Kennedy to distract us from the need for new approaches to fixing a failing system with urgent problems. In our interview, she defined abolition in a very sensible way as a slow process of building up the community so that we don’t need to rely on police, courts, and prisons as the catch-all solution for so many social issues.

If elected, Thomas-Kennedy wants to build a victim advocate unit and end qualified immunity in order to hold the police accountable. She also proposes strengthening the civil unit of the office in order to fight wage theft, take exploitive corporate landlords to court, and hold fossil fuel companies accountable for environmental harm which affects us all.

Thomas-Kennedy's opponent is Republican Ann Davison. Last year, Davison ran for lieutenant governor because she wanted to serve as a check on the Democrats in Olympia. Thankfully, Davison lost that primary election and Democratic lawmakers passed the most ambitious progressive agenda in decades this spring.

Davison is now running for Seattle city attorney echoing many of the same conservative Republican talking points from her previous campaign. Her divisive platform demonizes those experiencing homelessness and she doesn’t believe additional funding is needed to connect people with housing or services. During debates and in her campaign literature, she has displayed a lack of understanding about the role of the city attorney and how the office functions.

Thomas-Kennedy has faced misleading attacks from Fox News and right-wing radio hosts during this campaign. During our interview, she displayed a strong understanding of both the city attorney's office and the criminal justice system. We believe Thomas-Kennedy is the best choice for Seattle city attorney because of her experience representing marginalized Seattleites, her strong support from progressive advocates, and her commitment to pursuing justice for all Seattleites.

Teresa Mosqueda is running for re-election to Seattle City Council, Position 8. Previously, Mosqueda worked at the Washington State Labor Council as a political campaigns director and served on the board of Fuse Washington.

Mosqueda was first elected in 2017 and has distinguished herself as a progressive leader on the Seattle City Council. She sponsored the Jumpstart Seattle legislation that will fund affordable housing through a tax on high earners at large corporations. In addition, Mosqueda supported efforts to expand paid sick leave and establish minimum wages for gig and other workers who have often been left behind in our economy. Her campaign priorities include addressing our housing crisis with greater urgency, including re-zoning housing across Seattle, as well as providing assistance to renters and investing in health citywide.

Mosqueda is running against Kenneth Wilson, the manager of an engineering company. Wilson's platform is not progressive and does not reflect the community's priorities. His voter's guide statement includes comments about public safety and policing that indicate he would not support reinvestment in community safety alternatives. He is also dismissive of evidence-based solutions for our affordable housing crisis.

Mosqueda is a strong progressive and the clear choice for Seattle City Council, Position 8.

Lawyer and community activist Nikkita Oliver is running for Seattle City Council, Position 9. Oliver, who uses they/them pronouns, works with numerous local groups including Urban Impact, the Urban Youth Leadership Academy, and the Union Gospel Mission’s Youth Reach Out Center. Oliver is an exceptionally progressive advocate who is incredibly dedicated to creating systemic change focused on the needs of communities of color and low-income Seattleites. They also serve as executive director of Creative Justice and is a member of coalitions like Decriminalize Seattle, Free Them All WA, and No New Youth Jail.

Their forward-looking platform is centered around economic, social, racial, and environmental justice. Oliver's top priorities include expanding affordable housing, redirecting some police funding to make investments in communities, and bringing a Green New Deal to Seattle. If elected, Oliver would pursue policies to give everyone the opportunity to thrive, including preparing for extreme weather driven by climate change season that disproportionately impacts Black, brown, and Indigenous communities, and providing municipal broadband for all.

Oliver is running against Sara Nelson, who co-founded and owns Fremont Brewing. She wants to bring her experience as a small business owner to the council and refocus the city on delivering basic services. Nelson does not support increasing investments in homelessness services and affordable housing, despite clear evidence from outside studies that the city's funding has been inadequate. She also opposes redirecting funds from the police department into community-based alternatives for public safety.

The Seattle City Council has a track record of crafting innovative solutions to some of the most important issues facing our community. From groundbreaking minimum wage and sick leave requirements to empowering workers with predictable schedules and hazard pay to pushing for bold action on climate and making the wealthy pay their share, the city council has worked to build a stronger and more inclusive city.

As we tackle big challenges with homelessness, police violence, climate change, and pandemic recovery, it's not the time to elect a cautious, business-oriented candidate who doesn't appear to be a catalyst for progressive change. Oliver is the clear choice in this race for Seattle City Council, Position 9.

Vivian Song Maritz is running for Seattle School Board in District 4. Maritz is a small business owner, PTSA president, member of the Superintendent’s Parent Advisory Council, and mother of three students in Seattle Public Schools. As the daughter of immigrants and as an Asian American with a hearing disability, Maritz emphasizes the significant impact public schools had on her own life and the work ahead to make them more inclusive for all.

Maritz is running to bring her 15 years of private sector experience in finance and operations to the school board. If elected, she would focus on delivering mental health support as an essential service for students, achieving progress on inclusion in the classroom and school system broadly, securing efficient and accessible transportation for students, and expanding the services and quality of education for disabled students. She would also like to reduce the focus on standardized testing and continue, but reform, the option school program, which allows students to apply to attend schools outside their neighborhood. She is also committed to applying anti-racist principles to governance and school policies.

In the primary, Maritz has faced some criticism regarding both her involvement in a Facebook group that pushed to reopen schools early and her recent move into District 4. After extensive research, we did not find either criticism to be compelling. During our interview, Maritz stated that she supported the Seattle Education Association's three priorities at the time and she advocated for vaccinating teachers earlier to re-open schools safely. As for her move, Maritz was candid about relocating to District 4 to run for office, clarifying that her children already attend an option school alongside many students from District 4 and her family had already been spending a lot of time in the area. This was not a concern for us given her previous connection to the district and the short move from Capitol Hill.

Maritz is running against Laura Marie Rivera, an educator, active union member, and board member for the Coe Elementary PTA. Rivera also serves as the local chair of the National PTA’s Reflections Art Competition and on the board of Friends of Seattle’s Olmsted Parks. She is running to bring transparency, opportunity, and equity to the school system.

Maritz is the best choice to represent District 4. She will bring important financial management expertise and increased representation to the Seattle School Board.

Michelle Sarju is running for Seattle School Board in District 5. Sarju is a former midwife, social worker, and PTA member who currently works with King County Public Health.

Sarju wants to make sure that all children in the Seattle Public School system have a chance at a quality education. Her campaign platform includes closing the racial gap in student opportunity, valuing alternative evidence-based metrics for success above standardized tests, providing social and emotional support for students, and investing in an anti-racist curriculum. She believes that in order to care for students during in-person learning, schools must provide more mental health support. Sarju is committed to not simply going back to normal post-COVID, but instead addressing root causes to make our school system stronger and more equitable than ever.

Sarju is running against Dan Harder, a Boeing engineer who is running on a reactionary, Trump-style agenda focused on pushing out honest and age-appropriate curriculum that teaches students about our history. Harder would use this excuse to explicitly walk back progress made in diversity, equity, and inclusion in the Seattle Public School system. He lacks a vision for the role beyond Trump politics and has no community or elected experience.

We recommend Michelle Sarju for Seattle School Board in District 5 because of her clear, progressive vision and the broad support she has earned from our partners and local leaders.

Incumbent Director Brandon Hersey is running for re-election to Position 7 on the Seattle School Board. Hersey joined the school board after being appointed in September 2019, and he used to teach at an elementary school in Federal Way. Hersey is also the current vice president of the board of directors and volunteers as a scoutmaster for Washington’s first African American Boy Scout troop. Previously, he served as a policy analyst for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families.

Since joining the board, Hersey has supported Seattle Public Schools’ participatory budgeting and multicultural curricula. In this race, he is running to make sure that all Seattle students, especially students of color, can receive a safe, equitable, and historically accurate education. His campaign platform includes COVID-safe school policies, open lines of communication between families and the board, and mental health programming for students of all ages.

Hersey's opponent is Genesis Williamson, a Seattle University graduate who now works as an assistant to the dean’s office. She has yet to release detailed campaign information as of late October, and submitted no information to the official King County voters guide.

With his policy and teaching background, and strong support from our partners, Hersey is the best choice in this race to maintain progressive leadership on the Seattle School Board.