Multiple media outlets calling race for Seattle mayor as Wilson widens lead over Harrell

Multiple media outlets have called the race for Seattle mayor as community organizer Katie Wilson widened her lead over Seattle’s incumbent Mayor Bruce Harrell Wednesday.

Wilson is leading Harrell by 1,976 votes, nearly out of the 2,000 recount range, in one of the closest mayoral races in the city’s history.

She currently has 50.1% of the vote (138,489 votes), compared to Harrell at 49.4% of the vote (136,513 votes), as shown on King County’s website.

“A huge congratulations to Katie Wilson for reminding people of what is possible and running a terrific, grassroots campaign focused on making Seattle a city where everyone can afford to live,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal said in a prepared statement Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Harrell said he will give a speech Thursday.

Wilson overtakes Harrell in voting

Wilson overtook Harrell in the voting Monday.

“I’m feeling great right now. We’ve increased our lead from yesterday, and we’re actually just under the threshold where we can get out of the automatic recount territory,” Wilson said after seeing Tuesday’s election results. “I think it’s likely that we will increase our lead. We have hundreds of volunteers out across the city helping people to cure their ballots if their signature doesn’t match or if they forgot to sign it. So I really think that we will continue to inch ahead over the last few kind of straggling ballots that get counted, and, you know, we’re going to wait for everything to be counted. But I think I feel that we’ve won this race.”

In last Thursday’s drop, Harrell had 9,908 more votes than Wilson at 52.6% (91,263), while Wilson had 46.9% (81,355 votes).

“I think it’s clear that young voters overwhelmingly supported my campaign,” Wilson continued. “It was really exciting, especially as we got toward the general election, to have young people come up to me and tell me that this was the first vote that they were casting and that they were excited to vote for me. That has just really warmed my heart.”

Harrell is seeking to become the first re-elected mayor for Seattle since Greg Nickels in 2005. He has not conceded yet, as of this reporting.

“While not the direction we were hoping for, this remains a very close race, and we want to ensure every vote is counted,” Harrell’s campaign stated to KIRO Newsradio. “We are grateful to our volunteers, who continue to reach out to voters, and will see how the final ballots are tallied.”

Mayoral election much closer compared to primary

Both he and Wilson emerged from the state’s August primary as the two leading candidates for mayor in Seattle. Wilson received 98,562 votes (50.75%) compared to Harrell’s 80,043 votes (41.21%).

Wilson, who has never run for public office before this election, is best known for co-founding and leading the Transit Riders Union, an organization dedicated to improving public transportation and advocating for workers’ rights.

One of Wilson’s career highlights during her tenure was designing the ORCA LIFT program, according to her campaign.

Harrell, meanwhile, previously served on the Seattle City Council for 13 years, from 2008 to 2020, before becoming mayor. Throughout his campaign, he explained to voters how deeply embedded he is in the city’s fabric, having grown up and attended school in Seattle before pursuing a career in city government.

Wilson, on the contrary, first arrived in Seattle in 2004, having grown up on the East Coast in New York.

Wilson primarily campaigned on expanding workers’ rights, addressing the homelessness crisis in Seattle, and creating more affordable housing through social housing, rent control, and using public land for affordable development.

On the contrary, Harrell campaigned on a more moderate platform, highlighting decreased city-wide crime, a more bolstered police force, and a reenergized downtown sector, in addition to promises of furthering his work to create more affordable housing and reduce homelessness.

Controversies arose as candidates sparred on campaign trail

As the mayoral race heated up, Wilson was accused of falsifying an endorsement.

Wilson stated that she was endorsed by Claude Burfect, a prominent civil rights activist who was the first vice president of the Seattle-King County chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). However, Burfect told Frontlines he never endorsed her.

Burfect also accused Wilson of photoshopping a picture of him for her campaign and tagging it with the word “endorsed.”

“She used me to elevate her,” Burfect said in the report. “She’s dishonest.”

Meanwhile, Wilson told KIRO Newsradio that Burfect did endorse her over the phone and subsequently confirmed his endorsement through an email exchange.

“Claude Burfect endorsed me during a phone conversation I had with him in August, and subsequently confirmed his endorsement via email,” Wilson’s team wrote in a statement. “Claude is free to change his mind, as sometimes happens during campaigns, and we wish him nothing but the best.” 

Harrell accuses Wilson of darkening photo

A month before the general election, Harrell accused Wilson of darkening a photo of him.

The photo, posted by Black-led progressive group Common Power, showed Harrell’s skin appearing to have been edited to a different color, PubliCola reported earlier this week. The group used it to promote a debate watch party.

In an email, Harrell’s campaign called the photo “darkened” and included the subheading: “Another chapter in the troubling history of manipulating skin color to dehumanize candidates of color in politics.”

During a debate in October, Harrell said Wilson used the “tactic to darken my image in a regular picture, to make me look ominous, OK?” according to PubliCola.

Both Wilson and Common Power denied that the photo had been altered with malicious intent. Common Power replaced the image of Harrell with an updated version.

Harrell previously accused of toxic work environment

Earlier this year, in March, former Seattle Deputy Mayor Monisha Harrell accused Mayor Harrell of sexism and running a toxic office where sexism was the apparent norm. Monisha is the mayor’s niece.

Monisha claimed Bruce Harrell and his male advisors referred to her as “SDM Nazi,” where “SDM” (Senior Deputy Mayor) was an inside joke meaning “So Damn Mad” or “So Damn Mean.” She also told KUOW that the mayor’s office was a cutthroat environment where white male advisors competed for influence, marginalized women, and overrode female staffers’ decisions.

The former deputy mayor claimed her uncle often ignored her and other women, frequently overturning their decisions and instead prioritizing his white male advisors’ input. She also claimed that the mayor was more interested in the title than in working on the day-to-day duties.

“Her feedback means a lot to me, and I played a big role in her life raising her,” Harrell said during a mayoral debate. “So if that was her perception and that’s how she felt, I have to receive that and I have to get better. The fact is, I have the lowest turnover rate in a mayor’s office in 30 years. The fact is, I have more diversity on my team. Nearly half are women and people of color.

“If you talk to anyone on my cabinet, anyone on my team, they absolutely love working for me,” Harrell added. “They have great senses of humor.”

Six other city staff members, both current and former, corroborated Monisha’s allegations regarding the workplace under Harrell.

Washington’s general election is Nov. 4.

Contributing: Julia Dallas, MyNorthwest

Frank Sumrall is a content editor at MyNorthwest. You can read his stories here and you can email him here.