‘Tone-deaf message’: KIRO fill-in host says Harrell should’ve focused on his experience, not Wilson
Nov 13, 2025, 4:58 PM
Bruce Harrell conceded in the race for Seattle mayor Thursday, officially making Katie Wilson the mayor-elect.
In his speech, Harrell recalled his biggest accomplishments while mayor, touting his work on public safety and affordable housing. He said he tried to lead with love, and that humor was a form of love, and that you have to smile through the pain.
“The funny thing about it, maybe the great irony about it, is that was a funnier and more normal speech than Bruce Harrell ever gives,” KIRO fill-in host Mike Lewis said on “The Jake and Spike Show” on KIRO Newsradio. “This is something that would have been much more effective as a campaigner than as a concession. I mean, he has a sense of humor. He didn’t show it very often. He tended to get kind of testy with reporters and with questions. And it’s a shame, because this is actually the other side of him.”
Harrell centers campaign around Wilson’s lack of experience
Harrell centered his campaign around Wilson’s lack of experience in government, which Mike believes was the wrong move.
“This is one thing that I heard resonate from virtually every woman that I know who voted in the election. They all seized on one thing they didn’t like, and that was the going after Katie Wilson on her inexperience, because it’s such an old trope with women taking office, or women in high positions, say CEO or in the C suite in a company, that has always been a criticism that has been leveled,” Mike said. “If you’re a woman, you’ve been on the receiving end of that many times when people, just as inexperienced but happened to be men, didn’t get that criticism. And whether or not it’s fair.”
“That to me is the main question,” KIRO fill-in host Greg Tomlin chimed in. “Is it warranted or justified? Not whether or not it relates to old tropes.”
To which Mike replied, “But warranted or justified doesn’t always mean a winning campaign strategy, and if you’re going to never sort of smell test this stuff. It’s not like I was asking this question: Did this point bother you? Because then you’re going to get a yes. This was independent of any sort of conversation about this, maybe talking about the mayor’s race, and it was to a person — all brought this, like they didn’t like the tone of, like, ‘Oh, she’s inexperienced.’
“I’m not saying whether or not it’s fair, because I don’t know. I don’t know that fair is maybe a third cousin to politics and political discourse, but it seemed kind of a tone-deaf message when he had stuff he could have run on, rather than on what she lacked,” he continued.
Watch the full discussion in the video above.
Listen to “The Jake and Spike Show” weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.
