The Stranger Endorsements

Seattle City Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda is now running for King County Council from District 8. She was first elected to the Seattle City Council in 2017. Mosqueda previously worked at the Washington State Department of Health, Children’s Alliance, Community Health Plan of Washington, and the Washington State Labor Council, with a focus on worker's rights and children's healthcare. Among other community roles, she also served on the board of Fuse Washington, which publishes this guide.

Mosqueda has distinguished herself as a progressive leader on the Seattle City Council. She sponsored the Jumpstart Seattle legislation, which funds affordable housing through a tax on high earners at large corporations. In addition, she 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 current goal is passing the 2023 Housing Levy, which will be on the ballot for Seattle voters this November and would provide funding for crucial affordable housing, childcare services, and communal and cultural spaces that are disappearing from the city.

If elected to the county council, Mosqueda hopes to use her experience to address new and pressing issues in the county. Some of her priorities include finding locations for the six new county behavioral health centers, building workforce housing outside of Seattle, increasing apprenticeship programs, and more. 

Mosqueda is the clear choice for King County Council from District 8.

Maren Costa is the leading progressive candidate running to replace Lisa Herbold on the Seattle City Council from District 1. A former Amazon principal designer, Costa advocated for a climate action plan at Amazon that eventually became their official Climate Pledge. In 2020, Costa was illegally fired from the company after sending out an email to rally her coworkers around poor warehouse conditions for workers. With the backing of an open letter from nine U.S. senators, including Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, Costa won her case against Amazon and continued advocating for workers and her community.

Costa is now running to bring her tenacity and experience in management to city hall. In our interview with Costa, she spoke about the importance of raising more money to maintain services as the city faces a $100 million budget shortfall. Her proposals, including a vacancy tax, were squarely aimed at making the wealthiest pay what they owe to our communities. 

Costa wants to look out for working people and make Seattle more livable for all. She spoke to a desire to improve affordability by allowing more mixed-use developments and “four floors and corner stores” in neighborhoods. She believes well-designed, denser neighborhoods are critical as the state faces a severe housing shortage, making living here hard for teachers, nurses, and other working professionals. On homelessness, Costa wants the city to take a housing-first approach, working on getting people into secure housing instead of criminalizing them for sleeping outside. On public safety, Costa offers a vision that funds gun violence prevention, community policing, and alternative response models. 

Costa's experience managing million-dollar budgets and successfully advocating for corporate climate action makes her stand out as a progressive among the top candidates in the district. That experience plus an impressive set of endorsements make her the best choice for Seattle City Council in District 1.

Community organizer and incumbent Councilmember Tammy Morales is running for her second term serving District 2 on the Seattle City Council. Morales was first elected in 2019 and has been a vocal progressive advocate for this diverse district. Previously, she worked with the Rainier Beach Action Coalition to advocate for affordable housing, food security, and other pressing community needs. Beyond the city council, Morales has also served as a legislative director and city budget analyst.

In her current role, Morales has pushed for safe and walkable streets, corporate accountability, social and other affordable housing measures, and climate crisis emergency responses such as extreme heat and smoke shelters. She is running to build on her previous term to advocate for Green New Deal funding and environmental protections that will keep Seattle a healthy place to live for generations to come. If re-elected, Morales will continue to champion affordable housing policies, neighborhood revitalization investments, and tenant rights. She has received an extensive and diverse list of endorsements in this race including from fellow city council members and other local progressives.

Morales has the practical track record and the progressive vision necessary to advocate for District 2 on the Seattle City Council. She has earned your vote for re-election.

Ron Davis is running for Seattle City Council, District 4 as an outspoken progressive advocate for affordable housing, community safety, and more. Davis served on the Roosevelt Neighborhood Association and has been a board member at Futurewise, which advocates for sustainability and livable communities. In our interview with Davis, he emphasized that he's running to be the opposite of retiring incumbent council member Alex Pedersen, who stood in the way of many progressive policies, including efforts to build more "missing middle" housing.

Davis would focus on housing supply, subsidizing housing so that everyone has more affordable access, and increasing stability for renters. Many policies are on the table for Davis to achieve this, including prohibiting rent price gouging, funding social housing, expanding mid-rise housing, ensuring the "right to return" for people displaced by developers, and offering square footage and height bonuses. Davis is also rigorously pro-science when it comes to treating homelessness as a housing problem. He points out that many challenging and displacing life events like domestic abuse, addiction, and job loss are less catastrophic when people can afford rent and stay off the streets. Aside from the many housing policies above, Davis would push to build 3,500 permanent supportive housing units. 

Davis is one of the few candidates - not just in the district, but citywide - to acknowledge that even Seattle's own police don't think they can hire 400 more officers during a nationwide shortage. Rather than lowering standards on hires and pouring more money into bonuses, he wants to see aggressive expansion into alternatives to policing for people in crisis. Other top priorities for Davis are worker's rights, including subsidized childcare, closing minimum wage loopholes, and more.

Vote for Ron Davis for progressive change on the Seattle City Council from District 4.

Incumbent Dan Strauss is seeking re-election to the District 6 seat on the Seattle City Council. Strauss was first elected in 2019, and he previously served as a senior policy advisor to Councilmember Sally Bagshaw and worked for the Alliance for Gun Responsibility. Now, he is running for a second term to continue bringing community-focused leadership to District 6.

On the council, Strauss has prioritized creating more affordable housing options and strengthening tenant rights. With investments of $250 million in 2022, permanent supportive housing was purchased in Green Lake, Ballard, and Greenwood. As the land use chair, he also points to how he has cleared encampments without sweeps by connecting people to services. Unfortunately, Strauss recently voted in favor of allowing Republican City Attorney Ann Davison to prosecute people for drug use. In addition, Strauss disappointed many advocates by pushing for larger police budgets, which would increase the presence of militarized police in our communities instead of making us safer. 

If re-elected, Strauss will continue to develop Ballard Commons Park as a community green space, support the local small business economy, and ensure corporations and the wealthy pay what they owe. While he has not been the progressive leader some had hoped for, all of his viable opponents would be a step backward for the district and the city overall. Strauss has earned the majority of endorsements from progressive leaders and organizations and is the clear choice for city council from District 6.

Councilmember Andrew Lewis is running for re-election to the Seattle City Council from District 7. Lewis was first elected to the seat in 2019 and previously served as an assistant city attorney, where he worked on the Seattle Human Rights Commission. He also serves as the president of the Seattle Metropolitan Park District where he has worked to create jobs, ensure the cleanliness of public green space, and advance environmental goals for the city.

In his first term on the council, Lewis prioritized funding affordable housing programs, ensuring community safety, and achieving greater climate protections to make Seattle a healthier place for all of us. He secured funding to fully renovate the Queen Anne Community Center and expanded the JustCARE program, which offers outreach, shelter, and wrap-around services to Seattleites without housing. In this race, he is running on a progressive platform to expand crisis support services, invest in social and transitional housing options, and improve the city’s public transit infrastructure to reduce both traffic and greenhouse gas emissions.

Lewis has earned an impressive list of endorsements from elected officials and key community leaders and is the most progressive choice in this race. Vote Andrew Lewis for Seattle City Council from District 7.

Incumbent Liza Rankin was elected in 2019 and took office shortly before the chaos of the pandemic hit our schools. Prior to her election, Rankin was a longtime community organizer and artist who had served on the PTA of her children's school as well as on the board of the Seattle Council PTSA and the advisory board at Sand Point Arts and Cultural Exchange at Magnuson Park, among other leadership roles. Rankin began her school activism by bringing food to teachers walking picket lines during the 2015 strike. She ran on a vision to support the school board's new Strategic Plan and ensure that every child has equitable access and opportunity to learn.

In our extensive interview with Rankin, she reiterated that the board had made excellent progress on those issues, including reducing disproportionate discipline against boys and students of color, banning isolation practices, and limiting restraints. She noted that progress had been made on inclusionary practices for students with disabilities, moving the city's public schools from the bottom quartile to the bottom half nationwide. Rankin is running again to continue this work, but also to address head-on the issues facing students and schools. 

We found Rankin to be clear-eyed on the issue of the budget. She told us without equivocation that any one-time fixes have run out and expenditures are higher than state revenue provides. Rankin told us that in the last 8 years, 10 schools had opened, and a mismatch of schools open and students who actually attend mean the school closures are likely one of the ways to close the budget gap. For example, she stated that 15 elementary schools have fewer than 250 students and the district could save money on administration and provide better opportunities for students if they were added to larger schools.

Rankin noted that an upgrade to school lock security would be complete in Seattle Public Schools soon, and outside of that, Carlsen and Rankin were somewhat similar on school safety. 

Rankin is a good choice if you're looking for someone with institutional knowledge to serve during a challenging time for our schools. 

Gina Topp is running for the open seat vacated by incumbent Leslie Harris, who isn't running for re-election. She is the chief legal counsel and policy advisor to King County Executive Dow Constantine and served on the boards of the 34th Legislative District Democrats and the Seattle Sports Complex Foundation. 

Like other candidates for school board this year, Topp's platform listed on her website is somewhat vague. If elected, she aims to cultivate a safe and welcoming environment for all students, empower educators, and engage parents. In her interview with The Seattle Times, Topp stated that her plan for the budget crisis is to advocate for more money from the Legislature - an idea that incumbent Liza Rankin has said was unlikely to succeed because of the recent increase in funding already coming from the state.

Despite this, we believe that Topp has the strongest experience of the available candidates for this seat. She has two opponents on the primary ballot. Rosie McCarter describes herself as a neurodivergent, two-spirit mom of three, and a proud Cherokee and Joseph's band of Nez Perce. She states that as a parent ambassador and peer educator, she wants to tackle the district's budget crisis without making cuts to vital programs, though she does not say where cuts would be made or where additional revenue will come from. She also states that all students, regardless of income, should receive free meals, that systemic racism in schools must be addressed, and that the highly capable program needs fixes. However, she offers no additional information on her website about how she would accomplish this. 

The other candidate is Maryanne Wood, who does not appear to have education advocacy experience. She states that her childhood on a dairy farm made her value hard work, and she has six grandchildren in the district. Wood's top message is "no to school closures," and she also says that she will "dial back the mega schools that are already planned at Alki, Rogers, and Montlake."

Topp's experience and progressive endorsements make her the best choice in District 1 for Seattle School Board Director.