The push for a progressive mayor has arrived in Seattle

Zohran Mamdani's swift victory in New York City's Democratic primary has led to a wave of momentum for progressive candidates in other cities, and the trend has now reached the other side of the country. Seattle's upcoming mayoral race has been whittled down to two candidates, one of whom, Katie Wilson, shares a similar platform and template to Mamdani's. And while Seattle won't head to the polls until November, experts are pointing to Wilson's candidacy as an example of the progressive "Mamdani effect" taking hold.

Who are the candidates for Seattle mayor?

Wilson is the co-founder and head of the Transit Riders Union, a group organizing to improve public transportation in Seattle. Her mayoral campaign is her first foray into electoral politics, and she has campaigned on a strongly progressive platform, including her "involvement in past efforts to raise the minimum wage, tax large corporations, improve public transit and provide stronger protections for renters," said Bloomberg.

Wilson has also campaigned heavily on progressive solutions for homelessness, which remains pervasive in Seattle. The city's homelessness is caused by a "severe shortage of affordable housing, the result of neoliberal underinvestment in subsidized housing and a long history of exclusionary zoning," Wilson said in an op-ed for Seattle newspaper The Stranger. The "solution is to fund housing, shelter, and services at scale; sweeping people from one place to another is cruel and useless."

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Her opponent, Bruce Harrell, is a more traditional Democrat and is Seattle's incumbent mayor, having served since 2022. Harrell was originally "viewed as the overwhelming favorite to win reelection," said The Seattle Times. But he came in second place to Wilson in the mayoral primary by a large margin, even as he has "made the pitch to voters that he's the best" against President Donald Trump, "touting a recent lawsuit against the administration."

What's the bigger picture?

No matter what happens in the general election, Wilson's popularity in Seattle "shows Zohran Mamdani is not alone" in a wave of progressivism, said The Nation. Similar to Mamdani, Wilson is campaigning on a "populist economic message that puts affordability of care at its heart and mobilizes young grassroots organizers."

Harrell is one of several moderate Democrats elected in Seattle in recent years. But Wilson's growing force is a sign that the city's "political pendulum may be swinging again and shifting back to the progressive left," said KING-TV Seattle. Just like New York City is "seeing action or movement toward" Mamdani, that "same sort of fervor is showing up here in the voters in Seattle as well," Patrick Schoettmer, a political science professor at Seattle University, said to KING-TV.

And like everything else in American politics, Trump may be playing an outsized role in voters' minds. The primary "told a bigger story of local politics in Trump's second term," said Heather Weiner, a consultant with PowerHouse Strategic, to The Seattle Times. Many of Seattle's numerous tech businesses have also "lost trust among local voters as they take a more conciliatory approach to Trump in his second term."

Seattle might be just the beginning of this left-leaning push, experts say. Progressive candidates "across the board in this election cycle have moved away from some of the harder-edge messages that turned off a lot of middle-of-the-road voters," Sandeep Kaushik, a political strategist, said to Bloomberg. The "affordability message is something that people feel broadly."