Playing nice in the democracy-voucher sandbox

Seattle races stay relatively low-dollar, for now

We’ve been perusing the financial disclosures in the races for Seattle City Council and here’s our main takeaway: There’s a lot less political money sloshing around the city than in past years — at least for now.

Two years ago, the city was in the midst of a hard-fought campaign for mayor, with some of the city’s wealthiest citizens spending heavily in favor of eventual winner Bruce Harrell, and labor unions backing his opponent, Lorena González. Similar fat-cat money got behind now-City Councilmember Sara Nelson and now-City Attorney Ann Davison, who narrowly defeated candidates of the abolitionist left. North of $10 million got spent on that election.

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No candidate in this year’s election has raised more than $200,000. The biggest independent expenditure before the primary was less than $100,000. All the candidates combined — including dozens who didn’t survive the primary — have raised less than $3 million as of this writing even though four of the seven seats have no incumbent.

Now, at this point the cognoscenti among you are no doubt raising two objections: 1. It’s Oct. 2; there’s a month to go. 2. It’s an apples-to-oranges comparison because the mayor, the city attorney, and both at-large council seats were on the ballot in ‘21. All four offices are elected citywide and thus require citywide campaigns. Both granted.

But here’s why you should care about this: The apples-to-apples comparison to 2019, when the same seven districted seats on the council were on the ballot is almost as stark. In that year, candidates raised and spent more than $5 million, and independent committees spent another $3 million to influence the outcome.