UNPACKING THE PRIMARY ELECTION RESULTS

The primary election this year has narrowed the fields down across the state to just the top two candidates for any given race, and the results are telling. Western Washington and King County especially seem to want to push in a much more progressive direction than the 2023 election. Whether some of that is due to the Trump effect at the national level or something more is going on at the local level remains to be seen. I do want to preface all of this with a disclaimer that the publish date for this article was August 6, the day after the primary, so some results may have changed in the interim. Let’s break everything down.

CITY OF SEATTLE

Incumbent Mayor Bruce Harrell, trailed by newcomer Katie Wilson, is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Transit Riders Union, which has been a thorn in the side of housing providers all across King County. Harrel is trailing by roughly 5,000 votes. With the other candidates not advancing, we’ll have to see how many votes flip over to Herrell versus Wilson in November.

Another concerning race in Seattle is District 9, which is currently held by the Council President, Sara Nelson. Nelson is trailing newcomer Dionne Foster by a significant margin. Nelson will have some serious ground to make up trying to sway some of the more progressive voters in her favor. I will remind our readers that Nelson has done a ton of behind-the-scenes work for housing providers during her time as Council President and the moderate majority currently controlling the council.

Sitting City Attorney Ann Davison is also trailing her opponent, Erika Evan, and will need to grab the votes from the two other candidates who will not be advancing. A reminder for readers, Davison is the one and only elected Republican in the City of Seattle government.

CITY OF SPOKANE

The council race to keep an eye on here is Position 3. Position 3 is currently held by Councilmember Zach Zappone, who has worked to move Spokane in a detrimental direction for housing providers. His opponent will be Chris Savage, who beat out Cody Arguelles for the second slot. This would be a crucial position to flip to Savage as Spokane has become one of the most progressive city councils in the state. If Savage can grab Arguelles’ votes in the General election, that puts him neck in neck with Zappone and will mean an interesting race in November.

CITY OF TACOMA

The news is a bit brighter here. With the council’s ability to modify Measure 1 in December of 2025, who sits in the mayor’s office and on the city council is crucial to the future of rental housing in the City of Destiny.

Mayoral candidate John Hines trailed opponent Anders Ibsen; however, the three candidates no longer advancing, Jesus Carlos, Steve Haverly, and Whitney Steven’s tend to be more aligned with Hines on many issues, so time will tell how many voters move their votes over to current District 1 Councilmember, John Hines. Ibsen is a former Tacoma City Council Member and is now campaigning to fix many of the issues that were caused by votes he took during his time on the council. Councilmember Hines understands RHAWA’s issues and was an outspoken critic of Measure 1 in the fall of 2023, and would have the support of many council members to modify this policy come December.

City Council District 5 also shows some promise with incumbent Joe Bushnell with 55% of the vote versus his next closest competitor, Democratic Socialists of America candidate Zev Cook with 29%. The DSA nationally has been putting big dollars into this campaign and must be disappointed with the results even after some of the smear campaign opinion editorials about Councilmember Bushnell.

CITY OF BELLEVUE

RHA PAC Endorsed Candidate Paul Clark will advance to the November General Election as he beat out every other candidate on the ballot, including the appointed incumbent, Vishal Bhargava. Clark understands the issues of our membership and would work alongside the two other RHA PAC-endorsed candidates for the Bellevue City Council, Jared Nieuwenhuis and Conrad Lee. Nieuwenhuis and Lee are both in two-candidate races so did not appear on the primary ballot, but look for their names on your General Election ballot coming to a mailbox near you in mid-October.

COUNTY LEVEL

On the King and Snohomish County level’s King County Executive Candidate Claudia Balducci lost to Girmay Zahilay, but again, there are plenty of votes that will move over from the other candidates not advancing. This is all to say, this will be an interesting and close race come November.

Representative and current Snohomish County Councilmember Sam Low should hold his seat pending any major changes between now and November as he easily beats his opponent in that race.

Pierce County Council also has an interesting race shaping up for November, with Republican Terry Wise beating out incumbent Democrat Bryan Yambe by a margin of 43% to 38%. So, something may be in the works to change up control of the Pierce County council after Democrat Ryan Melo was elected to the County Executive position, succeeding long-time Republican Executive Bruce Dammeier and thus flipping the Pierce County Council into a Democratic majority.

STATE LEGISLATIVE RACES

District 5: Chad Magendanz (R), State Senate

The former State Representative trailed the current appointed Senator Victoria Hunt, but not by a large margin, about 1,500. This seat is absolutely winnable for Magendanz and would be a huge seat acquisition for the Republican party to avoid a Democratic supermajority in the Senate.

District 26: Michelle Caldier (R), State Senate

This is by far the most encouraging legislative news statewide. Caldier has represented the 26th for 11 years and is trailing appointee Deb Krishnadasan (D) by just 322 votes. Senator Krishnadasan was appointed earlier this year after the previously elected Senator Emily Randall was elected to the United States Congress. If the close margin sounds familiar, that’s because District 26 is one of only three bi-partisan districts in the entire state, and as such is a very purple district where the margin of victory for candidates many times comes down to less than 200 votes.

Representative Caldier has always been an ardent supporter of RHAWA and our membership, and just as with Magendanz above in District 5, it would be a huge win to avoid a supermajority in the Senate.
If you want to hear more from Michelle Caldier, check out her recent interview on the Housing Matters Podcast at RHAWA.org/podcast

District 33: Kevin Schilling (D), State Representative

In the Primary, Schilling trailed appointed Representative Edwin Obras by about 2,000 votes, but the Republican candidate Darryl Jones will not be advancing to the November General Election. So, we have to believe many of those votes will slide over to the much more moderate candidate in Kevin Schilling.

Obras was appointed to the seat after longstanding Senator Karen Keiser announced her retirement last year, and Representative Tina Orwall was appointed to the vacant Senate seat. That left a representative seat open, and Obras was appointed without any prior elected experience.

Obras has the Democratic machine behind him in the race, as Schilling is much more of a pragmatic moderate on many issues and won’t just be an automatic check “Yes” that the majority party wants from this seat in Olympia. Obras was a check “Yes” on rent.

Kevin Schilling is currently the Mayor of Burien and has been a very outspoken critic of how housing is being handled in our state, and has testified against various rent control and rent control-like policies numerous times in his public capacity, which has led to constant lambasting by his own party.
He is running for state representative in his district and hopes to bring his voice of reason to Olympia.

District 48: Amy Walen (D), State Senate

Walen lost to the appointed incumbent by about 3,500 votes, so the current District 48 Representative will have some ground to make up, but Walen is up to the task.

Representative Walen, just like Kevin Schilling, is running against her own party member, appointed Senator Vandana Slatter, because she believes that moving District 48 in a more pragmatic and sensical direction is much better for the long term, not just her district, but for all of Washington State. She will be a firm stopgap for much of the lunacy previously derived from the Washington State Senate. Slatter, like Obras, has shown to be a check “Yes” to the Democratic Majority Machine. 

If you have watched any of the votes on various housing-centric or rent control bills over the last few years, you will know that Representative Amy Walen has voted against rent control on every occasion. She comes from a legal and business background and understands how economics and housing work, not the fairy tale being peddled in Olympia.

In conclusion, there is a lot to be concerned about and a lot to be grateful for with the primary results. Again, Seattle and King County seem to be pushing back in a left-leaning direction while the rest of the state wants to maintain the status quo or even push to the right a little bit. For an off-year election, November should still have plenty of fireworks, even lacking a Presidential or Gubernatorial race.

Stay with RHAWA leading up to the November General Election for candidate coverage and our Voter’s Guide coming in October.