Why didn’t the Seattle City Council members currently running vote for Mayor Bruce Harrell?

The three incumbents currently running for Seattle City Council admitted to KUOW that they did not vote for Mayor Bruce Harrell in the last mayoral election.

These councilmembers – Andrew Lewis (District 7 – Queen Anne, downtown), Dan Strauss (District 6 – Ballard, Greenwood), and Tammy Morales (District 2 – South Seattle) – voted for then-Council President Lorena González instead.

Why, and what does that signal about Seattle politics?

First, recall that Lorena González was elected to one of two citywide seats in 2015 – signaling the beginning of the latest progressive wave in Seattle city politics.

Four years later, Lewis, Strauss, and Morales were elected for the first time, all touting Seattle lefty values.

(For the uninitiated, Seattle politics aren’t left/right like the rest of the country. Here, everyone agrees on abortion and gun locks and transportation taxes – but will go to battle over the finer points of housing density requirements.)

The 2020 Seattle council election garnered national attention after Amazon got involved. Then, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders weighed in in favor of the progressives to help them defeat the Amazon-friendly candidates.

Come November 2020, after a summer of protests on Seattle’s Capitol Hill, the council, led by González, was nearly unified in statements of support for defunding the police department. Harrell, meanwhile, was more moderate – and catered more to Seattle’s business class.

Human psychology dictates that the incumbents might support their colleague over someone they didn’t know well, but collegiality is a minor point here. They continued to vote in step with González through 2021.

Morales hasn’t strayed from her views. But Strauss, irreverently nicknamed the “Boy King of Ballard” by a reporter in town who shall not be named – has said he would change his vote if he could.

"I voted for Lorena González, but if I had a time machine I would go back and change my vote to Harrell,” Strauss said in a KUOW questionnaire.

He is the only one of the three incumbents to get Harrell’s endorsement this year. He has softened toward developers and has said, “Defund the police was a mistake.” (The Seattle Police Department was not defunded, to be clear.)

Speaking of endorsements, Councilmember Sara Nelson has endorsed her colleagues’ opponents: Pete Hanning (opposite Strauss), Bob Kettle (opposite Lewis), and Tanya Woo (opposite Morales).

Are the incumbents taking it personally? Possibly, but there’s already friction between Nelson and six of nine of her colleagues … plus have you seen the abuse these people take at council meetings?

Election Day is November 7.

Produced for the web by Isolde Raftery.