-Rob Saka, would love to earn your vote.
-Can I count on your vote? -You absolutely can.
-We'll be saying hello to some new faces
on the Seattle City Council,
after a contentious fall election,
with seven out of nine seats up for grabs.
-I'm the current Council member
who represents District 2.
-Only three incumbents decided to run again
and early returns are favoring their challengers.
-People are looking to make some changes.
-Plus, are voters supporting a City Council member
changing jobs and a new, more expensive housing levy.
-I think the lesson is it could've been larger.
-Our studio panel weighs in on the early election count
and what those results say about the top issues
for Seattle voters.
-The dollars exist to end this crisis.
What we lack is political will.
-Deciphering the details of the 2023 election.
Next on City Inside Out.
[ Upbeat music plays ]
[ Music stops ]
-And welcome to City Inside Out.
I'm your host, Brian Callanan.
This week, we are breaking down the results
of the November elections here in Seattle.
And have I got a great panel of experts to help out,
including Erica C. Barnett, founder of PubliCola.
Good to see you. -Great to be here.
-Also we have with us Stuart Elway,
who's been doing nonpartisan opinion polls
across the northwest since 1975, starting at the age of three.
Great to have you here too. -Thank you.
-And joining us as well, finally, Greg Colburn,
an associate professor of real estate
at the University of Washington.
He has researched housing and homelessness extensively.
Key issues in this election. Thanks for being here.
-Thanks for having me. -Let's jump right into it.
Erica, I wanna talk numbers to start with you,
a very busy election,
seven seats on the Seattle City Council on the ballot
in our seven districts, only three incumbents running.
We saw a lot of moderate candidates
take some early leads in the election night results here.
Starting in District 1, West Seattle,
up into Pioneer Square. Again, very early here.
But Rob Saka 58.7%, Maren Costa at 40.8%.
This was the largest gap of any district on election night.
What do those numbers tell you?
-Well, one thing it tells me is that spending really matters.
There is a tremendous amount of outside spending
by independent expenditure groups
in this race in particular.
It was close to half a million dollars backing Rob Saka,
so I think that really helped.
And I think we'll see that as a theme
in a lot of the other races as well.
-I was gonna say too, District 2, Southeast Seattle,
Tanya Woo, 54.2%. Incumbent Tammy Morales, 45.3%.
It would appear that maybe some of the later progressive votes
might help Morales in this race. What do you think?
-Yeah, I mean, this is one race
I would say that's still up in the air.
Tammy Morales has shown in the past
that she can close a gap of about 9%.
You know, every single race she closes 8 to 9%.
So she's, you know, almost nine points behind.
She could close this. I think this is the only race
that is truly, sort of, up in the air at this point.
But we'll see. -OK, fair enough.
District 3 Capitol Hill Central district
out to Madison Park.
Joy Hollingsworth 58.3% Alex Hudson 41.4%.
Any surprises here?
-Not terribly surprising.
This is actually what I predicted,
and my predictions are usually wrong,
so I guess I was surprised by that.
But yeah, I mean,
Joy Hollingsworth benefited from
the early endorsement of Mayor Bruce Harrell,
and this was an unusually undivisive race.
I thought that was the one really unusual thing about it.
-They were very collegial with each other, for sure.
Another candidate supported by the mayor,
Maritza Rivera in District 4,
55.3% to Ron Davis' 44.2% on election night.
Some thoughts on this one.
-This was another, you know, heavy spending race.
I also think Ron Davis didn't do himself any favors
by flip-flopping or appearing to flip flop
on a number of issues,
and I think Rivera really benefited from not talking a lot
and just kind of letting her opponents spend.
And of course, as in all these races,
I should mention portraying him
as a fan of defund the police
and being soft on crime.
-Sure, that was a constant echo as well.
District 5, North Seattle, Cathy Moore 70.1%.
Christiana Obeysumner 29.5%.
This one's been called by the Seattle Times.
I'll keep moving along here.
District 6 Ballard and Fremont,
Pete Hanning 50.8%.
Incumbent Dan Strauss 48.7%.
Is this a closer one? How do you look at this one?
-It's closer than I would've expected.
Dan Strauss is probably, presumably going to pull it off.
But, you know, Pete Hanning did not have outside money,
alone among the other... all of the races.
-The only race like that, yeah.
-And he did not succeed in... "Defund Dan" was his slogan.
And I think that was not successful.
Partly because of a lot of Strauss' votes
that don't support that narrative.
-Final one D7, Downtown Seattle up to Queen Anne.
Bob Kettle, 55.8%. Incumbent Andrew Lewis, 43.8%.
That would be a big gap to make up.
-It's happened before, Kshama Sawant closed
a 12 point gap in 2019, so it's not inconceivable,
but it's a big gap and I was at the party last night.
Andrew Lewis was pretty glum.
Bob Kettle's party, by contrast, was jubilant.
-Alright. Well fair enough.
Thanks for breaking down those numbers.
Stuart, some more numbers.
Let's talk about the Crosscut/Elway poll.
In early September it showed 44% of voters
wanted significant change on the Seattle City Council.
Another 41% said change it, but not that much.
Looking at the early returns, how'd this play out?
-Well, I think people got what they wanted in our poll.
We did the poll in early September
and haven't polled since, just to sort of set the table,
and people were looking to make some changes.
And in some ways, the biggest change
for a lot of people had already taken place.
When Kshama Sawant not gonna be on the Council anymore.
-Yeah -I mean, it sort of took a lot.
I thought it took a lot of the energy out of the race.
The overall race.
-Yeah. And I thought it was interesting
taking a step further.
And the people who wanted significant change,
57% of people in the poll
said they wanted a more centrist candidate.
In the moderate change camp,
67% said vote for a progressive out there.
Looking at those numbers, what did you...
-They said they were gonna vote for the moderate.
But when we asked them who they were voting for,
more people were voting for the progressive.
That's a fine line in Seattle.
We have we have light blue and dark blue candidates.
-That's true. -And so,
We're going to get change almost no matter what,
because the three incumbents are going away.
And so I think people wanted change.
They were going to get it. But as we're seeing now,
the light blue candidates are leading everywhere.
But as Erica points out, two years ago,
all of the progressive candidates made up 12 points,
or 12 to 14 points,
between Monday and Friday.
So there's... -A lot to look at here.
-A lot to keep going. Yeah. -Alright. Fair enough.
Greg, I wanna talk to you about this
because you've done a lot of research
on homelessness and housing.
Top issue for candidates in this race.
It has been for a long time.
Your new book is Homelessness is a Housing Problem.
I'm still reading. Chapter one is fabulous, by the way.
One key message you lay in that first chapter
that I think is very important.
You're really trying to cut through
some of the political noise surrounding homelessness
and focus on some larger solutions.
And I know your research compares cities nationwide.
So I want your perspective.
How much does this progressive versus centrist,
or moderate debate that we're having here in Seattle
really impact the homelessness crisis?
-Well, I think there are a couple of different ways.
I think the vote on the levy is a clear indication...
-The housing levy, yeah.
-The housing levy, a clear indication
that people recognize we have a housing crisis.
And that manifests itself as unaffordable housing
for school teachers, and it also manifests itself
in a homelessness crisis that we observe on our streets.
You know, I think I actually find
the City Council races pretty interesting
because I actually was teaching an affordable housing class
right before I got here. And we talked about in class,
what does this signal in terms of how our community
might respond to the crisis of unsheltered homelessness?
And I would suspect, and although I could be wrong,
that we might see slightly more harsh responses
in terms of moving people, removing encampments,
having maybe a more forceful response to the crisis.
And so what I think what we see is voters saying
we understand that we have a deficit of housing.
We will fund that.
We also have a short term crisis,
we wanna see action on that.
That's what I take away from these results.
-That long term and short term has been a battle with
the homelessness sphere for so long.
Maybe Eric, I can have you weigh in
on what Greg is saying. Considering the new faces
that we'll see on the City Council next year,
what direction do you see our city going
when it comes to homelessness?
-Well, I think Greg is right
about the harshness of the response.
I would say, you know, it's hard to know how much more
the city can do in terms of removing encampments.
I mean, you walk around Downtown and Harrell's policy,
the mayor's policy of removing encampments is very visible.
So I think that there will be an effort
to crack down on encampments more.
But I think this election was so much about crime
that it almost turned away from homelessness.
And it's not as if homelessness, you know,
diminished as an actual problem between August and now.
-Right. -It's just that the campaigns
focused on this, you know, relentless drumbeat of crime.
And so that's what it ended up being about.
So we'll see. I mean, I again,
I just don't see a lot of new spending on homelessness
to Greg's point, you know, to actually solve problems,
especially with the deficit that's looming.
-Thanks. I'm gonna come back to the public safety issue soon.
Stuart, I just wanted to
make sure I talked about your work
with Crosscut on statewide polls over the last few years.
Homelessness is tops on voters minds,
and it has been for a long time. Your thoughts about that,
and maybe your take on the early results,
and maybe what these more moderate approaches,
approaches to homelessness might say to people.
-Well, it has been a top issue statewide,
not just Seattle, but certainly Seattle.
It's been top in Seattle.
We know what the issues are in Seattle.
They've been the same issues
for the last several election cycles.
And I think what people are saying is
they're not seeing progress.
But in our poll, so it was...
The top issues were homelessness,
crime, affordable housing and then policing.
So, you know, two issues for four parts,
and people want all of them addressed.
We had large majorities in our polls
support hiring more police, giving them more training,
hiring more substance abuse programs.
More diversion, more density, more housing.
And then the housing levy passed.
So people want all of them addressed,
or at least one of them. -Yeah.
-Pick a problem. Do something.
-Right. -It's kind of how people think.
-Got it. Thank you. Erica, real quick to you.
I wanted to take a look at a race
that's affecting the City Council at large.
Council member Teresa Mosqueda has a slim lead,
about 50 to 49% on election night,
in a race against Burien mayor Sofia Aragon
for King County Council, position eight.
Let's say the late vote swing progressive, as they often do,
and Mosqueda goes on to win that position.
How does that impact the City Council?
How does that impact the County Council?
-Well, I mean, I think the County Council
will be getting a real asset in Teresa Mosqueda,
you know, very involved, active, intelligent person
who does her research and does homework.
-Budget chair for the Council, yeah.
-Budget chair for the Council.
So I think that she'll be an ally to people
like Claudia Balducci and Girmay Zahilay.
-Yeah. -I think on the City Council,
I mean, this this is gonna be
a really interesting open question.
If they end up appointing a successor
to Teresa Mosqueda next year,
it's gonna be the new Council.
Sara Nelson might be Council President at that point.
I've heard she wants that position.
So they will presumably appoint a moderate.
So we could see, you know,
yet another moderate to centrist
City Council member joining that majority.
-Yeah, almost a supermajority at that point.
-Yeah. -If you look at it that way.
Stuart, I just wanted to touch on one point here,
this whole idea of the votes swinging progressive late.
I always see that in elections. What is that?
What's the phenomenon that's going on there?
-Well, I think the progressive vote
tend to be more younger folks.
More... I don't want to say...
less established in the community.
I mean, in terms of they haven't lived here for 20 years.
-Okay.
-And so the more established folks
they know what they want, they vote early.
The younger folks seem to vote later.
They want to study more. They don't get around to it.
My waiter yesterday at lunch said,
"Oh no, you know, it's on the table."
I said, "Well, you know, you got two more hours to go vote."
So there's just a little bit less attention,
I think, to city issues, and so they vote later
and they get counted later. -OK. Alright.
Thank you. I just wanted to make sure
I talked about that. Greg I wanted to touch back on
that housing levy issue with you here.
So the Seattle Times has called this one to a 66
to 34% margin on election night.
This one is looking like it's gonna win.
There was no organized opposition to this measure.
It seems to have transcended
this moderate and progressive debate somewhat.
I guess I wanted to look at this a little more closely.
Is this the kind of policy
local leaders should be promoting?
creating, preserving affordable rental homes?
What do you make of this vote?
-Well, I actually served on
the technical advisory committee for the levy.
Just in the interest of full disclosure.
-Please. -I do think it's something
that we should be pursuing.
And in fact, looking at Twitter this morning,
a colleague of mine at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C.,
highlighted the Seattle levy as a wise, community-focused effort
to create more housing in a city that desperately needs it.
And it used a funding mechanism that is progressive.
And so it lined up well
in terms of ideology and the output.
I think the challenge, and issues that I raised
in our advisory committee meetings,
was one of scale. -Yeah.
-And I think, do we desperately need it?
Yes. And is $970 million sufficient
to end the crisis of the housing and homelessness crisis?
No, it's not. -Certainly not by itself.
-Yeah.
-And so it's an important input into a total solution.
But it's not a silver bullet, would be my opinion.
-Got it. Thanks very much for that.
Stuart, I wanna jump back to you on this one.
We touched on this earlier.
58% of the people you polled in September said
they would either definitely or probably support the levy.
And as we've heard, 66% closer to approving it
on election night from the returns there.
What do you make of these numbers?
They're relatively close to that
70% of voters who approve the housing levy in 2016.
This has some staying power.
It's been around since 1986. -It does. Yeah.
-I mean, I think both, as I said earlier,
the issues of states at the top of the list
and this resolution that gets proposed gets approved
because people want a solution.
So you name a solution, I'll support it.
-Yeah.
-But I think there was some restlessness about,
gee, we don't seem to be making much progress.
-Right. -On the other hand,
we mentioned earlier, you know,
the potential for a sort of a harsher approach.
In our poll, there was a majority
who did not... who picked...
the choice was moving the tents out of the parks
or developing permanent housing,
and the majority wanted developing permanent housing.
There was not a majority for just,
let's just sweep everybody away out of sight.
-Yeah, yeah. -So there's a real compassion,
as well as a recognition that we've got a problem,
but there's a compassionate response overall.
-Thank you for breaking down those numbers.
Just real quick on the housing levy with you Erica.
So the 2023 housing levy, $970 million.
More than triple the $290 million price tag
it had back in 2016.
I remember back in 2016
the levy was more than double what it was in 2009.
So it's a cost that's gone up significantly.
And I've just seen this.
I was talking about this with Stuart before the show.
Seattle voters just about always support raising property taxes
for these different levies and initiatives here.
Do you see any message here with the levy vote
or what message do you see
after it's been increased so substantially?
-Well, interestingly, you know, there were voices
before the levy actually went onto the ballot,
saying that it could afford to be much larger.
And there was a lot of pushback, as I understand it,
that, you know, voters are not going to
just support increasing this infinitely.
And I think the lesson is it could have been larger.
I mean, the problem with the -- with just comparing year to year
is that things are a lot more expensive now.
Construction in particular is a lot more expensive.
Labor is a lot more expensive.
So that $970 million levy tripling
doesn't actually triple the amount of housing.
In fact, it barely increases it.
And so we're sort of staying almost flat,
increasing the amount that it will build a little bit,
for three times as much money.
But given the numbers, I think it could have gone higher
and actually made a more significant difference.
-Yeah.
-Greg, was that going on behind the scenes?
People were pushing for more? -Absolutely.
The initial proposal was for flat units.
And the scale of the crisis now is greater
than it was in 2017 and so -- or 2016.
And so I think there was a clear recognition that --
that a stable number of units,
because of the inflationary pressures that Erica mentioned,
was not sufficient.
I was a voice on there saying,
"Did we think about 3x that number?"
-Yeah, yeah. -And obviously I don't have --
I'm not a politician,
and I don't have to report to constituents.
But I think it's an open question
of what scale do we need to really address this crisis
and change the trajectory of the housing
and homelessness crisis in our city.
-And politically, since we know
that Seattle's supportive of these levies,
making one larger one is easier to sell than
"Didn't we just do that two years ago?"
And now you're coming back again,
and now you're coming back.
So breaking it up may not be the best political strategy
because it's -- the problem is still here.
And you're asking for more money now.
-I think it is clear, though, that it's one tool
that the city is trying to use.
And, Greg, maybe I can jump back to you,
because there's a housing issue
in the background of this election --
the social housing initiative Seattle voters
approved in February.
This is a new system.
It creates a public development authority to build affordable
housing with units for people of mixed incomes.
It's tenant run -- more common in Europe
than we see it here in the US.
So the PDA now has its start-up money
with a boost from the city and the state.
But I was just trying to look big picture.
Do we need the housing levy
and this new system to make an impact?
Are there more tools needed? What do you think?
-Well, I think, you know, the social housing initiative is,
I think, a recognition.
I mean, to me, the vote for that was a recognition
that we need to think about other types of housing
and that solely relying on the private market
for housing doesn't work.
It's worked fine for me.
It doesn't necessarily work well for everyone.
That's what I take from that.
We still need to figure out how to fund that authority.
And so that's an open question.
And so to me, there are a variety of different entities
that we could use to accelerate the production of housing.
That could come from the Seattle Housing Authority.
It could come from this new private development authority.
We can use funds from from the housing levy.
I travel around the country talking about this.
I always say the answer is "D," all of the above,
when we talk about the deficit of housing.
We need a lot of people to be building housing
from both public and private sources.
We need lots of funding mechanisms,
and we need to do it quickly.
-Yeah, I saw you making a note to yourself there, Erica.
You've talked about this.
-The note that I made was "spending problem,"
in quotes, because I think that the City Council candidates
that have been running have been saying,
"you know, the city doesn't have a budget problem.
It has a spending problem."
And that makes me worry about things like
the social housing program,
because it is going to require spending.
And I think that there is not a lot of appetite
for additional spending on the City Council right now.
That is alarming if you believe, as you know, as I do as well,
that you need all kinds of housing.
Social housing is also middle income housing,
not just very low income housing
that the housing levy funds.
So it's a different kind of housing.
-That's right.
-So I think, you know,
"all of the above" is going to be a hard sell with a council,
you know, if they genuinely believe that the city
is somehow spending too much money on housing
and other other things that the city funds.
-Yeah, it's for people well above the area median income.
That's for sure.
So, Stuart, I wanted to jump back to you.
Talk about public safety.
You touched on this earlier,
this idea of hiring more police officers.
Definitely a hot topic on the campaign trail.
Hundreds of officers have left the SPD
in the past couple of years.
It's been a challenge to recruit and retain new hires.
So in 2021, your poll showed 54% of people
supported hiring more officers.
This year, that number is up to 64%.
How do you think this played out?
-Well, we talked earlier about how crime has stayed at the top
and the focus this year seemed to shift a little
from homelessness to the crime aspect
of the social problems we're having.
And so I think people want to have that.
But as I said, they want to have more police.
They support that.
But they also supported, by 72%,
a new Department of Emergency Response
-Non-police alternatives. -Yeah, yeah.
So again, it's not just let's -- let's arm up
and sweep people away.
It's not that.
-There's more to it. -Much more to it.
-Erica, some thoughts about this --
how police hiring, public safety impacted the 2023 election?
I don't think those two are necessarily
equivalent to each other,
but I know a lot of people might have seen it that way.
Some thoughts about maybe what Stuart's saying and your take
on how public safety and police hiring
played a role in these elections.
-Well, I mean, I think that there was an oversimplification
and conflation of all of those issues,
as well as homelessness, to an extent.
But I think that it was the number-one issue.
I mean, every single -- every single district
had mailers that said the other candidate --
except for, I think, maybe District 3 --
had mailers saying the other candidate
supports defunding the police.
What I think will be very interesting
is now this group has a mandate,
and they're going to get in there
and they're going to presumably have an agenda
similar to the Harrell Administration.
And I think what they will find is that it is actually
quite difficult to hire police just by saying it.
Because there is a nationwide problem
with getting people to want to be police.
And it is not just because the Seattle City Council
was mean to police once.
It's -- It's a massive overall issue across the nation.
And I think that they're going to find
that it's not as easy as it might seem
on a campaign mailer.
-Yeah, they're offering $30,000 bonuses, too,
to some of these hires.
So thank you for that.
Stuart, back to you as we start wrapping up here.
I'm looking towards the future of Seattle, if I may, with you.
Your September poll showed 63% support
for a new tax on Seattle's largest businesses.
60% said they'd support a new tax
on Seattle's wealthiest residents.
What does this tell you about where voters want
to guide city leaders,
maybe when it comes to the economy,
going into the future here?
-Well, we talked earlier that Seattle
never seems to be faced with a tax that they don't like.
So it's also -- it's easy to say "I'm for a tax" in a poll.
It's another thing to say -- to actually pay the tax.
And this one was someone else is going to pay this tax.
So I thought it was a little bit easy to say that.
-I see.
That's an interesting piece on that.
Greg, I know this whole concept of the income gap
between high earners, low earners is a key issue
here for leaders in Seattle,
certainly is a driver when it comes to housing, too.
What's your research telling you about the kinds
of policies local leaders
need to be thinking about to keep Seattle prosperous
and hopefully make opportunities for people
of many different income levels?
-Well, I think one thing that we have,
and it's not just Seattle, it's many of our coastal cities
have not done a very good job,
is pairing housing growth with population growth.
And so what we've done is we have imported
lots of well-compensated employees
who are now residents of our communities,
which is wonderful.
It's prosperity, and no one's going to argue against that.
The problem is, we have not created sufficient
housing capacity for people who are incumbent residents
who have now been priced out.
And so we've got massive displacement,
we've got homelessness, and it's a consequence of our prosperity.
And so what I find frustrating
for the wealthiest cities in the United States
is that's where homelessness is most prevalent.
The dollars exist to end this crisis.
What we lack is political will.
And so we absolutely need to to prioritize investments
in housing to ensure that
people who've called Seattle home for three decades
can continue to live here.
And to date, we haven't done that,
and we're living with the consequences.
-Thank you for that, Greg.
Erica, I want to wrap up with you on this thought.
We touched on this earlier,
but new leaders are coming into Seattle.
They're inheriting a budget gap
of more than $200 million next year.
There are going to be some tough choices ahead.
What are your thoughts about a new Council
and how they're going to deal with them?
-I think one thing they're going to do
is start raiding the Jumpstart Fund,
which Teresa Mosqueda as Budget Chair, has protected,
and as the founder of that -- that initiative,
which is a payroll tax on big businesses.
And, you know, I think they're going to see that as a cash cow.
It brings in a lot of money for affordable housing
and other purposes.
And so I think it is just inevitable
that that money sitting there, they're going to say,
"Well, we got to use some of that to close the gap."
As far as progressive new taxes, I don't know.
I mean, with this -- with this mandate
and this number of new centrist candidates coming in,
not sure that we're going to see a big push,
but perhaps a capital gains tax, you know,
could happen this year.
I mean, we're talking -- we're still in the middle
of budget season right now.
So the existing Council, the current Council,
could come back with a tax increase
before the new Council comes in.
-Yeah, we will see what happens there.
Thank you all for this feedback here.
And we will see you next time on "City Inside Out."
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