Tag Archives: 2021 Elections

News

Seattle and King County General Election Results

by Nathalie Graham, Agueda Pacheco Flores, Ashley Archibald, Chetanya Robinson, Marcus Green

Editors’ Note: We will continue to update this article with election updates in the coming days.

Seattle voters appeared to be embracing moderate candidates in key races for mayor, city attorney and City Council, according to early returns Tuesday night.

Updated results as of 11/04/2021

Seattle Mayor’s Race

Update 11/05/2021, 1:00 p.m.:

Lorena González conceded the mayor’s race, making Bruce Harrell Seattle’s next mayor.

She tweeted her concession Thursday after election results showed Harrell leading González 62% to 38% with just under 33% of ballots counted.

“With today’s ballot drop, it’s clear that Bruce Harrell will be the next Mayor of Seattle,” she said on @MLorenaGonzalez “Earlier, I called him to congratulate him on a hard-fought race and wished him much luck in his efforts to make progress on the challenges Seattle faces.”

Update 11/04/2021, 4:00 p.m.:

With just under 33% of ballots counted, Bruce Harrell leads Lorena González 62% to 38%.

Bruce Harrell was leading Lorena González 65% to 35% in a race to elect Seattle’s next mayor and potentially set the course on homelessness, policing, affordable housing, and other critical issues facing the city.

Seattle voters found themselves in a similar position Tuesday night to election nights past: Should the electorate choose a moderate Democrat or a progressive to steer the city? 

Continue reading Seattle and King County General Election Results →
Voices

OPINION: School Boards and Local Elections Are Ground Zero for Our Values

by Shasti Conrad

Local elections don’t just matter: They are a matter of life and death for far too many in our communities. 

About a month ago, I learned that my hometown of Newberg, Oregon, became the center of attention for all the wrong reasons. The local school board voted to ban symbols such as Pride flags and signs declaring that “Black Lives Matter,” calling them “political statements’’ and therefore inappropriate for school. What they really did was politicize humanity and, in the name of “neutrality,” help the oppressor. 

As someone who also had to navigate predominantly white spaces as a student of color, my heart went out to students who, in that vote, witnessed representatives of the community invalidate their entire existence as a mere “political statement” that didn’t belong in a classroom setting. 

The fact that Newberg is my hometown galvanized me to take action. And I am now working with people in Newberg to hold school board members accountable for this, by supporting recall efforts for Brian Shannon, and making the Newberg School District more welcoming and equitable. And while the story of Newberg is deeply personal to me, it is also far from unique. These incidents are happening in schools all around the nation and in our own backyard. 

Continue reading OPINION: School Boards and Local Elections Are Ground Zero for Our Values →
Features

Weekend Long Reads: Voter Guides Galore

by Kevin Schofield

If you’re like the majority of Seattle voters, you’ll be filling out your ballot this weekend. And even if you haven’t yet tuned out the seemingly endless flood of candidate forums and political ads and you know who you want to vote for in the high-profile races, there are still several “down-ballot” positions, voter initiatives, and advisory votes that you likely still need to sort out.

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News

Getting Out the Vote: Local Organizations Rallying Historically Marginalized Groups

by Ashley Archibald

(This article originally appeared on Real Change and has been reprinted under an agreement.)

Voters in Seattle and King County are gearing up for the end of the electoral season, a lengthy — and expensive! — period in which candidates try to convince the public that they are the right person to lead government for the next four years.

Candidates have serious competition for voters’ attention and zeal for the democratic process. That’s particularly true in the region’s odd-year election cycle, which means the public rolled from the drama of the 2020 national campaign straight into local elections, which are arguably as consequential but don’t tend to command the same degree of participation.

But elections have consequences, and local organizations have been working overtime to not just encourage people to register to vote and fill out their ballots but be informed when they do it. That’s even more challenging this year than usual because of the pandemic, which limited groups’ abilities to engage in traditional “get-out-the-vote” activities.

However, where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Continue reading Getting Out the Vote: Local Organizations Rallying Historically Marginalized Groups →
Opinion

OPINION: Why I Support Nikkita Oliver for City Council

by Sean Goode

Several years ago, I sat in my South Seattle office frustrated at what I believed, at the time, was a misguided mission to stop the building of the new youth jail. It wasn’t that I thought our kids needed to be incarcerated. Rather, because the new facility was already being built, I believed that energy spent to protest the build should be used to combat the many other inequities perpetrated upon the Black community in Martin Luther King Jr. County.

Continue reading OPINION: Why I Support Nikkita Oliver for City Council →
News

Local Org Urges Formerly Incarcerated People to Vote Because They Can

by Agueda Pacheco Flores

With election night less than a week away, there is a lot of misinformation about voting rights that Chukundi Salisbury is working to get right. 

Since he founded “UrbVote” in 2015, Salisbury has worked tirelessly to register voters in the South End. But he’s not just focusing on registering teens as young as 16, he’s also focusing on those who are on the furthest end of the margins.


Even before the Washington State Legislature passed a bill to automatically reinstate voting rights to formerly incarcerated people this past spring. But that bill won’t go into effect until January of 2022.

Continue reading Local Org Urges Formerly Incarcerated People to Vote Because They Can →
News

King County Conservatives Discredit Progressive POC Candidates as ‘Defund’ Extremists

by Nathalie Graham

Earlier this month, King County Councilmember Kathy Lambert faced repercussions for a racist campaign ad she funded. The ad depicted her colleague, Councilmember Girmay Zahilay as a socialist puppeteer pulling the strings of Sarah Perry. Perry, Lambert’s opponent, is bringing Lambert the first real fight for a seat she’s held comfortably for 20 years. 

Lambert’s ad also associated Zahilay, who is not a socialist, with Vice President Kamala Harris and Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant. After public outcry, Lambert resigned from the King County Council committees she chaired.

In the age of Trump and social media-fueled polarization, “conflict and sensationalism” sells, says Zahilay. Politicians have pivoted to “divisiveness and scare tactics” to “rile up their base.” Zahilay sees this trend emerging across all levels of politics, local King County elections included. 

Continue reading King County Conservatives Discredit Progressive POC Candidates as ‘Defund’ Extremists →
News

NEWS GLEAMS: Election Checkup, Seattle Relief Fund, Black Future Co-op Seeks Community Input

curated by Emerald Staff

A round-up of news and announcements we don’t want to get lost in the fast-churning news cycle!

Register to vote today! Photo courtesy of King County Elections.

Election Checkup

Only six days left until Tuesday’s important Nov. 2 election!

Seattle’s Mayor, City Attorney, at-large City Council Pos. 9 seat, King County Executive, as well as other local city and county district races will be decided. The winners of those contests will chart the course of how the region tackles homelessness, policing, and housing affordability.

Did you get your ballot, or was it damaged in the mail? If you need help with your ballot  or other questions, call 206-296-VOTE (8683).

Are you registered to vote? It’s too late to register by mail and online, but you can still register and get a ballot through Election Day, Nov. 2, by visiting the King County Elections Center, 919 SW Grady Way in Renton, or a variety of voting centers in the county.

Who can register to vote in Washington? Simple, you must be:

  • A citizen of the United States.
  • A legal resident of Washington State.
  • At least 18 years old by election day.
  • Not disqualified from voting due to a court order.
  • Not under Department of Corrections supervision for a Washington felony conviction.

Read more about who can vote.

This article is funded in part by a Voter Education Fund grant from King County Elections and the Seattle Foundation.

Continue reading NEWS GLEAMS: Election Checkup, Seattle Relief Fund, Black Future Co-op Seeks Community Input →
Features

What Is Justice and How Should It Be Administered: Seattle’s City Attorney Race

by Alexa Peters

The race for Seattle’s next city attorney has been a surprising one since three-term incumbent Pete Holmes conceded in the August primaries, leaving newcomers Nicole Thomas-Kennedy and Ann Davison to duke it out.

The typically uneventful race for an often overlooked office heated up after many of Thomas-Kennedy’s controversial anti-police Tweets from 2020 resurfaced, prompting local media and previous Seattle municipal court judges to question her fitness for the City Attorney’s Office. Even Fox News’ Tucker Carlson took a stab at the candidate during a September segment of his show, calling the candidate flat-out “crazy.” Meanwhile, Davison, who recently switched from Republican to “moderate Democrat,” has come under fire for her Republican rhetoric and ties to a video campaign organized by a Trump supporter who participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection. 

In looking beyond political warfare, experts say the race for city attorney gets to the heart of a question all the more relevant since anti-police protests broke out in 2020: In Seattle, what do we consider justice and how should it be administered? Our selection for city attorney will be decided on voters’ answers to those questions.

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News

Redistricting Is an Opportunity to Build BIPOC Voting Power, Organizers Say

by Ben Adlin

Every 10 years, officials undertake a great political balancing act that profoundly — but almost invisibly — determines the value of your voice in democracy. By redrawing voting districts at the state and local levels, they set boundaries that will influence elections for the next decade.

The process, known as redistricting, is fundamental to the idea of representation in politics. How lines are drawn determines who votes in a given district, which in turn determines which candidates get elected, what laws are passed, and how public money is spent.

Continue reading Redistricting Is an Opportunity to Build BIPOC Voting Power, Organizers Say →