The Extra-Nice Post-Primary Election Episode

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Seattle Nice. This week, David Hyde is away, but we've got something even better. Question mark? Scott Greenstone, the host of Sound Politics, a new podcast on KUOW and a KUOW Politics Reporter with me and my co-host, Sandeep Kaushik.

[00:00:31] So we are doing this still giddy from a night of staying up very late watching election results. I think probably all three of us. And I want to start out with you, Scott. You were at a lot of the Republican parties last night for state races, I believe.

[00:00:47] And just tell us a little bit. I was sitting on my couch at home uncharacteristically watching one race, which we'll talk about. But tell us a little bit about what you saw last night and the results. Yeah, I drove out to Enum Claw, beautiful Enum Claw.

[00:01:01] And I was at Semi-Birds Election Night Party, which I wanted to go because even though Semi is polling low and has been attacked, he's the GOP endorsed candidate for governor, he's been attacked even from right wing radio by like Jason Rantz and things like that

[00:01:19] for allegations of stolen valor. Obviously the Seattle Times wrote back in April that he stole his father's identity. But his supporters have been really bullish in their belief that the polls are wrong, the fundraising numbers are wrong, they're the people's movement.

[00:01:35] And I wanted to see if they were going to pull the Unity card and go behind Dave Reikert, the GOP front runner for governor. And that's the vibe was very optimistic for a candidate who came in at under 10%.

[00:01:52] There was one point where one of the speakers was like, we don't like polls, do we? And a bunch of people booed. And I was like, well, relatable. I don't like polls either. Wait, by polls, do they mean the polls, like the vote? That was my question.

[00:02:07] That was my question. They don't like elections, maybe. My question. Well, so early results were coming in. I think they were basically like, oh, it's King County and that was their vibe all night. They were like every Eastern Washington counts is one thing Semibird said.

[00:02:22] But there's no path, I think, there for them. And yeah, I asked Semibird if he would endorse Dave Reikert and he said, definitely not. It seemed that's going to be a problem. So yeah, looking at that governor's race, Ferguson is sitting around 45%, which might not be amazing.

[00:02:39] But that's Bob Ferguson, the Democratic candidate for governor. Yeah, Bob Ferguson, current current current general, is the current attorney general and just Democrats in general in that race came out to to vote in this primary. And Republicans really did not.

[00:02:54] If you combined both of those leading Republicans, their votes together, they wouldn't even get to Ferguson's 45% in these early returns. And of course, these returns are early, but Republicans, to my sense, you know, they I don't think they're feeling very good. But I I can't imagine they are.

[00:03:12] But they are like, you know, keeping up a strong face at this at this point. So I don't even know what to say about the Republicans. I mean, first of all, I guess I would say Semibird is for the Constitution, man, he's for the Constitution.

[00:03:24] I was at Mike's Chili Parlor and Ballard a couple of months ago when this couple in a jacked up pickup truck with like American flags hanging off the back along with the don't tread on me flag

[00:03:39] and like pulled up and a huge Semibird like placards all over their pickup truck sort of drove up. I and my friends had a very, very pleasant chat with they were super enthusiastic and they love Semibird. And he's for the Constitution, man, and he will fix Washington state.

[00:03:56] And there they were in the heart of Ballard in Seattle, like making the case for their guy and happy to chat with us. And on the one hand, you know, more power to them, right? I mean, they should be out there and support their candidate.

[00:04:10] On the other hand, you know, it seemed a little out of touch with the reality of the realities of what Washington state is actually like and where we are as a state. Right. It's interesting because like I've even talked to some Republicans in Seattle,

[00:04:24] right, I followed one of them to the state convention and she was like, I don't know, Semi seems fine. But when he starts talking about this, he's a constitutional conservative. I don't even really know what that means. And I think that is, yeah, those those folks are committed.

[00:04:38] They're putting his signs up everywhere, but they don't represent most of the party. Most of the party is just kind of looking for some alternative to Democrat one party control. Right. But they control the party apparatus. Yeah, that's right.

[00:04:50] Were there any surprises at all in the state races for either of you guys? I don't follow those as closely. And Sunday, if I know you're working on a couple of those races, he just disclose those.

[00:05:02] But but yeah, just curious if there is any surprise was Dave up the groves, you know, showing he's still, I believe, in third place behind a couple of Republicans. Was that a surprise in that lands commissioner race?

[00:05:14] Or is it just that I'm not following these races as closely as you are? I was looking at probably was Sandy probably knows more about this race than I do. But I was looking at polling from the Northwest Progressive Institute

[00:05:25] last week that showed for up the grove was not breaking ahead of. So in that race, that's commissioner of public lands. It's like the state's groundskeeper. We talked about this on Sound Politics last week, but I listened. Oh, good. I want to hear your take.

[00:05:41] Yeah. But and then also like wildfire management, like that's the person who controls, you know, the state's forests and public waters. Sure. Almost six million acres of public lands across Washington state, forest lands, aquatic lands and the other lands commissioner

[00:05:55] oversees the Department of Natural Resources that runs that, you know, stewards all of that land. Yeah. And you have five Democrats in that race and they're all kind of they've kind of all got their own like little camps. Like you have like the firefighters like Kevin Vandaway,

[00:06:10] and he has a bunch of timber money. And then you have the tribal support is going to Patrick DePau, who is a current DNR employee and former Macaw tribal chair. And then you have Dave up the Grove, who was on the King County Council.

[00:06:24] But the polls weren't showing that he was getting very close to either of the Republicans. So the Republicans are also splitting the vote in that race. You've got Jamie Herrera Butler, you know, she was one of the impeachment 10 on the Republican side.

[00:06:39] She voted to impeach Trump in 2021 and lost her congressional seat. She's running to be Commissioner of Public Lands. She's doing the best so far in these early returns. Behind her is this kind of almost perennial candidate who I actually saw

[00:06:53] at Seby Bird's party last night, Sue Keel Peterson. You know, they might be the only two that make it through unless Dave up the Grove can. She he's very close to the Republican who's running behind.

[00:07:06] Yeah, as of the last text update I got, even as we were recording, he's a trailing right now statewide trailing Sue Peterson by about 1500 votes. But there's still a ton of votes in King County, which is obviously Dave Stronghold. He's a King County county.

[00:07:20] He's currently the King County Council pres or chair in and represents a South King County suburban district. And so we're cautiously I'm doing that right. So disclosure, I am doing that race. I've been consulting for Dave in that race.

[00:07:35] We're cautiously optimistic, but you know, there's still a lot of ballots that have even arrived yet at auditors offices. So we don't really have been frantically crunching numbers all day to try to get some sense of it.

[00:07:46] And I can say with great authority that I have no fucking idea what's actually going to happen at the end of this race. I'm optimistic that Dave is going to catch Sue and we will get through the primary, but I do not know that for sure.

[00:07:59] So we will see. So in Eric and answering your question, it wasn't a super big surprise because it was five Democrats, three of them with IE spending independent expenditure, six figure independent independent expenditure spending behind them and only two Republicans.

[00:08:15] And it's in a jungle primary where everyone's on the same ballot. That's the risk that, you know, the one party's vote gets split and two people from the other side get through. I the one thing that jumped out of me in the results last night that is

[00:08:30] not position eight on the Seattle City Council was legislative district 43. And I don't know if either of you guys are watching this, but Sean Scott who ran for city council a few years ago against Alex Peterson is currently winning outright with 55 percent.

[00:08:49] And he has two opponents identifying themselves as Democrat and one I know very little about Daniel Caricello. I don't even know if I'm saying that name right. So I apologize if I'm not, but he was endorsed by the Seattle Times, which

[00:09:04] I think just decided they did not want to endorse the other candidate who is Andrea Suarez, very controversial figure who started the group We Heart Seattle that does sort of ad hoc encampment removals and they say services and cleans up trash, things like that.

[00:09:21] And, you know, she has done events with Republicans in the past. She has endorsed Republicans publicly in the past, but she declared herself a Democrat and she's got 23 percent of the vote, which is which is lower than I expected to be honest.

[00:09:35] I, you know, I didn't know how strong a candidate Sean Scott would end up being. But but those results surprised me a little bit. I thought that Andrew would be a little bit stronger. Just, you know, maybe it's because I see her signs all the time in

[00:09:48] Valtown where I drive through, but were either of you surprised by that result or any reaction to that? I was very surprised she made it through. I just I think I'm used to. Would you know that she did. You're right. You're right.

[00:10:02] Sorry. So obviously early returns, he could make it up. I think it's I forget what's the difference. She was at six points. So it seems unlikely. It seems like she'll be she'll be in there. But but I mean, Sean Scott looks like he could definitely sail to election.

[00:10:18] I was surprised by that because, you know, I'm just used to primaries being it's the Seattle Times candidate versus the stranger candidate. And that didn't happen in this race or isn't looking like it's going to happen. I do know that she has.

[00:10:31] I've talked to voters who really like her, so I knew that she had some ground game or maybe word of mouth. But I am I am sort of surprised. I have to imagine Sean Scott is carrying that race.

[00:10:41] It's the it's the district with, you know, it stretches from Fremont to Belt and has got the statue of Lenin in it and Shama Salwan, you know, right? So like I am a little bit surprised that there, you know, Frank Chop

[00:10:55] was the was in that seat or is currently in that scene has endorsed Sean Scott, but it is even a shift to the left to elect someone who is a police abolitionist and an outright socialist. So that's that's interesting to me. I was surprised.

[00:11:10] I was I mean, look, it's the 43rd LD. It's the kind of heart of what we call Stranger Seattle, right? But you'd call Stranger, Stranger Seattle. What I call Stranger Seattle is the stranger. I'm like, I'm like you my former stranger colleague. So no, I wasn't super surprised.

[00:11:29] Look, Sean's a talented, funny, charismatic candidate. He's also very left, right? But that's a very left district. Andrea Suarez, I was a little surprised to Scott's point that she ended up vaulting past the Seattle Times endorsed candidate. Did you read that endorsement, though?

[00:11:51] It was like it was such bullshit. I mean, it was so obvious that they're just like, I don't know. Let's find something to say about this guy because we certainly don't, you know, want to endorse Sean. But for whatever reason, they also felt like they couldn't endorse Andrea.

[00:12:03] I mean, you know, I'm not at the Seattle Times, Scott, maybe you have more inside. I know you weren't on the editorial board side. But I mean, that just that seemed like so obviously, I mean, I think any

[00:12:13] any votes that he got above like 5% probably came from that. And that is, you know, the influence of the Seattle Times. That they did that in a couple of races this cycle, the Seattle Times picked the I'm sorry, what's his name?

[00:12:26] Daniel, I don't mean that I don't really mean this in a disparaging way. It's going to sound disparaging, but they picked the third wheel nobody, right? You know, and endorsed endorsed him against the too much better known candidates. They also did that in the.

[00:12:41] What was it in the insurance commissioner race, right? Another one of these less attention getting down ballad statewide races where they picked some guy who works in the office that nobody's ever heard of against a fairly prominent Democratic Olympia elected official and and and Republican candidates.

[00:13:01] And of course, that guy got got cream too in the primary. So it was it is a little odd that those choices on the part of the Seattle Times because they do usually in the past have taken kind of viability

[00:13:11] into account in their in their endorsements for whatever reasons decided in those races not to and they endorsed Ferguson rather than Mark Mullet, who aligns a lot more with in the governor's race, right? Mark Mullet aligns a lot more with their stances.

[00:13:27] But they said they didn't endorse him because his campaign for whatever reason has failed to catch fire or or whatever was there exactly. Right. There are there's a viability thing there. Yeah, for the record, I do not have any any insight into the Seattle Times editorial board.

[00:13:43] I was their union steward and that that's the only interaction I ever had with them. So a couple of quick things. First of all, Erica, you're asking what surprised me. Dave Reicher, twenty one percent in King County, the former King County sheriff.

[00:13:59] Like that is an atrocious, devastatingly bad number. And in fact, let's be clear, the governor's race is essentially over already. Like Bob Ferguson is going to beat Dave Reicher and be the next governor unless something really, really shocking happens.

[00:14:15] I mean, Republicans have been trending down in King County for a long time, but that's a really bad number. And the main reason that happened, Erica, this will you like this is that Bob Ferguson and his campaign basically carpet bombed Reicher with ads

[00:14:29] on abortion and his decision on choice. And they crushed it like a bug with that. As you know, I am like immune to TV ads because I just I'm not watching stuff that has ads on it. I mute them when they come on peacock or whatever.

[00:14:43] But I will say, I mean, you know, Ferguson is a great campaigner. As you know, a million years ago, I went out to canvas with him on his very first campaign for office working County Council. And man, I mean, I've just never seen somebody so dogged.

[00:15:00] And that was of course years ago. But I think he's he's also just got got a good ground game. Hates talking to journalists, but I do get the sense that he likes talking to normal people or at least I heard.

[00:15:12] I will say my complaint as the local politics reporter is like this next three months are going to be an interminable. And it started this morning. It's been going on for months and months. Ferguson constantly talking about Trump and abortion and Riker

[00:15:29] really avoiding any any talk about what kind of governor he's going to be, which I understand I don't blame him. That's how he's probably going to win. That's how he did so well in this primary. But I'd love to know, does he support rent limits on landlords?

[00:15:44] Right. Like we saw in the legislature that has died multiple times, but had progressive support. Would he would he push for that? I have a lot of questions about how he'd govern and he just does not

[00:15:56] have any interest in talking about them, which I understand it's his strategy. But it's going to be a annoying couple of months in the governor's race. Once more correction just on this that I want to add

[00:16:07] because this is the thing Erica isn't going to like about what Bob is. The one thing he did lean in on on his TV ads, aside from ripping Riker on being pro life or anti choice,

[00:16:19] is he really, really leaned in on how he's going to hire more cops across the state. Like that was his signature public safety is the most important thing. And I'm for adding, I think it was a hundred thousand police officers or some number. Those are the ads.

[00:16:36] I see are the 50 out of 50. That's a very campaigny campaign position. I mean, where you know, I mean, considering Seattle, you know, I don't know if you're exaggerating, Sunday, but considering Seattle has struggled to hire like, you know, 20, 30.

[00:16:50] I mean, that's that's a very unrealistic thing to to say, unless you're going to fund every single police department in the state, you know, at similar levels, so they can pay you know, people a hundred, one hundred, ten thousand dollars a year,

[00:17:02] the second they walk in the door, you know, at age 19 or whatever. You know, I just that does not strike me as a particularly realistic thing. I think it's probably a good campaign position to take abortion. I mean, it's, you know, abortion is protected in Washington state.

[00:17:17] You know, if anything, we do need funding to help people who are coming here from other states where it is very restricted like Idaho. But I will say Jay Inslee really struggled to say the word abortion for his entire time in office until very recently.

[00:17:32] So that is actually your right pandering to me. Has worked because I will say that is a welcome change from Inslee. He was just like, absolutely. I mean, would use the most awkward phrases you've ever heard in your life to describe abortion instead of just saying the word.

[00:17:48] But you know, I think Republicans have been kind of sputtering with apoplectic rage over the fact that Bob has been so heavily leaning into this Madmore cops public safety kind of position because he has in the past, I think there's there's things he said

[00:18:03] at the height of the 2020 stuff where we're sort of sounding a different tune and they're sort of like, this is disingenuous and he's just doing this for political gain. Well, but it totally has worked for him. I mean, Bob ran a just a devastating primary campaign against

[00:18:18] Riker on those two fronts, choice and cops. And you know, that's probably is what all you're going to hear, Scott between now and November. And the last thing I want to say is it is it is a really surprising he was able to turn that narrative around

[00:18:33] if he if he has on cops, because he has fewer police endorsements than any of the major candidates. I looked through his website. It was only three. What come County Sheriff Mabton police chief and guess the third in a block. Carmen. That's right. That was early. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:18:55] OK, can we turn to the the race that everybody wants to hear us talk about? And that is, of course, the Seattle City Council race for position eight. Sunday, if and I talked about it and David on a recent episode, but I wrote about it. Very spicy episode.

[00:19:11] Spicy episode. We had to edit out some of the spice. So it got too spicy. Maybe that'll be maybe that'll be a bonus episode at some point. But the one last thing I wanted to add in the one race

[00:19:23] I wanted to flag is this is the party I was at last night was Nick Brown running for attorney general, former US attorney, former governor for Jay Inslee. And wow, he had a big, big, big night. He was running against another Democrat, Monica Dengra from the state Senate.

[00:19:40] I'm working with Nick on that race. And we thought, you know, maybe it was going to be closer than it was, but he was up 15 points on on Monca last night. And, you know, I think that race is all but over.

[00:19:51] And then Pete Tirano, the Republican who's coming through in that race is a very conservative, maga kind of Republican. And so I think Nick is also very, very well positioned now to win that race. So pretty exciting. Nick is as an interesting has carved out this

[00:20:06] interesting space where he's not, he's never been for decriminalizing drugs. He's his job as US attorney was putting drug dealers in jail and he did, you know, a lot of them white supremacist gangs in Stilicum, you know, other folks here in King County.

[00:20:24] But he would tell his, you know, lawyers and he told me this is like, you should go into court and argue for the least amount necessary to put someone in prison because these folks are going to get out and then they should have another chance at reentering society.

[00:20:38] And so it's this interesting thing where he's like a sort of a progressive prosecutor. I don't know how much folks are going to or Republicans are going to attack him on that. I'm sure they probably already are. But it's an interesting space to look at.

[00:20:51] He kind of reads as a progressive, but not he's not so much as maybe Monca was. All right. So I want to turn to the last race. I think that we're going to discuss today, which is my favorite race because I covered it.

[00:21:08] The you're very, very excited about this race. I can tell I'm excited to talk to you about this race. Yeah. Should I just say goodbye now? No, I'm not. You guys. So this is Seattle City Council, position eight. Alexis Mercedes, rank is the challenger to short term

[00:21:26] incumbent and appointee Tanya Wu, who started on the council in January a little after her her colleagues. And Alexis is currently at 47 percent. Tanya is currently at 41 percent as as we're recording on Wednesday. And I believe Sunday, you said that if

[00:21:46] Tanya was under 45 percent, she was in trouble. And so I I want to I mean, I what's your what's your prediction of how this is going to turn out? And I'm I would love to say why I think this happened and I will.

[00:21:59] But I but I'd like to hear your take on on why why the incumbent Tanya Wu is coming in so low. Yeah. So first of all, it's a really, really strong result for Alexis. I don't think there's any other way to look at that.

[00:22:13] Typically, we have a left. She said she's running in the left lane as a challenger to the incumbent Tanya Wu, who was as we talked about our last the last time we talked about this, it was an appointee, right?

[00:22:25] She actually lost a close race to Tammy Morales last year. But but no, that's a super strong result. I mean, I think this race will probably finish with Tanya, you know, at 40, maybe even a little below 40.

[00:22:36] You know, that is not a great place to be if you're an incumbent running an election. Now, can you could she still win? Quite possibly she could. The classic example of this is Shama Sawant coming in at 39 percent

[00:22:50] in the primary, I think it was in 2019 and then going on to win anyway. So I wouldn't rule anything out there, but you got to look at this and say, Alexis did really, really well in in this primary.

[00:23:03] I think I have a couple of reasons why, but but I'd like to, Erica, why don't you kind of weigh in with yours or Scott? And then we can kind of get into that. Yeah. Well, I mean, I would say, well, first of all,

[00:23:13] the Shama Sawant example is kind of the opposite example in a way, though, because what typically happens between primaries and general elections and also between election night and the final certified election results is that more progressive voters, votes come in, people who voted later, people who are younger.

[00:23:29] And so the swing is typically to the left, not to the right, you know, on Seattle's political spectrum of the left. So I'm not sure that that that example is going to be applicable in this race. But what I'm saying is probably Tanya will drop down into kind

[00:23:47] of that range of 39 percent in there, which is where Shama ended up in the in that primary right. But even though then Shama went on to win and in the. Oh, I will say actually, general, but this is one of the things points I want to make about

[00:24:00] general election turnout in Seattle is not as progressive as primary turnout. Well, in a presidential year, I think, you know, we'll see. But yeah, but I think that I would predict that at this point that Alexis is by far the favorite to win.

[00:24:15] And the reason I think that is, and you know, I was talking to Christian Sinterman last night and he disagreed with me. Christian is Alexis's political consultant. But but I'm sticking to it. I think that this council overall that there is a sense in the public

[00:24:29] and it might not be based on any real specific examples, but there is a sense that they have overstepped their, you know, their supposed mandate on which they were elected last year. So this is a much more conservative council than the previous council.

[00:24:42] They talk all the time about how they want to undo stuff that the council did, that they think, you know, was unreasonable or too lefty. And they've said about doing that. I think that the impression is that, A, you know,

[00:24:54] they might be going a little too far with stuff like, you know, banning sex work again and cracking down on sex workers, banishing people from, you know, big swaths of the city for using drugs or sex work.

[00:25:08] But also I think there is just kind of a general sense that they aren't doing a lot and that they're bumbling. And so I think that Tanya Wu maybe gets swept up in that. She hasn't really done, you know, she hasn't put forward legislation herself

[00:25:22] or, you know, really made a name for herself on the council yet. And, you know, I don't know, I think that there might have been a little bit of an overcorrection that voters are perceiving, but I don't know.

[00:25:31] It also could be that Alexis just ran an incredibly good campaign. And this is just wishful thinking on my part. So yeah, this is one I have not been following super close. I figured I'd pay more attention after.

[00:25:43] I do want to do a story about, you know, I think it adds a lot. This is the first Seattle City Council race during a presidential election year since 1996, as you all have probably talked about before.

[00:25:55] So we have a rare sort of window into how progressive is Seattle really, right? For a long time, progressives have said, hey, we're electing the mayor and the city attorney in these off-year, you know, in 2021 and 2023 when nobody shows up or at least a lot of

[00:26:13] progressives don't show up. And so it doesn't really reflect we should, you know, we should move them to even years to presidential years, to congressional race years to actually reflect the makeup of the electorate. I, you know, I don't know about that.

[00:26:29] I know you all have also talked about that argument before. I do think that this is more to me, you know, Mercedes rinks campaign knowing and Alexis really, really knowing like what she's about. Whereas like Tanya and I also,

[00:26:44] I haven't super closely followed what the city council has done. It doesn't seem like they've done a ton yet. Just proposed some stuff. You know, when I followed Tanya as a candidate, I got the sense that she didn't totally know what she was about

[00:26:55] beyond like I show up and if you go to her website, it's like Tanya Wu shows up, you know, it's public safety. But, you know, she waffled on some key things like taxing the rich and stuff like that. Alexis understands that she's filling Teresa Mosqueda's seat

[00:27:11] and she basically needs to be a lot like Teresa Mosqueda. She's wonky, but she's got union support. She's young. She's a woman of color. And she just it seems like she understands who she is and she's a pretty good campaigner. You know, they're both a little stiff.

[00:27:27] I don't know if that's sexist to say I've met both of them and they're both like they're they're they're I think Alexis is careful. That would be my careful is a great way to describe it. Yeah. And Tanya, Tanya's Tanya's a little bit.

[00:27:45] Well, at least when I met her, when she was early in her campaign last year was just a quiet and shy. And I did sort of hold a debate between her and Tammy Morales. And she did not do well in that debate.

[00:27:58] You know, yeah, I saw I saw some debates between her and Tammy. And you know, I thought that she performed better, I guess, than then during our kind of one on one interview, we did have one of those. And same with you, Scott, I found her very shy

[00:28:13] and sort of didn't really want to want to say a lot and didn't really answer questions directly. But, you know, I think, you know, just leaving aside personality, I mean, I feel like, you know, the mailers that have gotten

[00:28:24] the social media stuff that I'm seeing like on Instagram is, you know, I mean, Alexis is just all over it. She's kind of everywhere and she's physically every I mean, I run into her all the time out just out in, you know, at meetings in the community.

[00:28:37] And I don't see Tanya Wu as much. So I know that to her campaign is that she shows up. But I think that that is a little limited to District 2 where she originally ran. And I think that that is that's going to hamper her a little bit

[00:28:50] in a citywide race. So, Sandeep, I know you're itching to talk. So what do you what do you think happened? I think there are a few different things that happened in this race that kind of jumped out at me. And one thing just just a funny little aside,

[00:29:04] Alexis texted me today. Kind of I think she's kind of trolling me a little bit. She sent me her little endorsement form. Funny thing for her to do. But I congratulated her, of course, on her very, very good results.

[00:29:17] One of the things she did was I got two mailers from Alexis, right, at my house in Finney Ridge. And the message of those mailers, I thought this was super smart, was she took the message that we ran on in the moderate lane

[00:29:32] for Ed Murray, for Jenny Durkin, for Bruce Harrell. It's about she basically did a kind of I want to unite the city, bring people together and solve problems and, you know, kind of a one Seattle. And I'm going to fill the city with love, stay totally away

[00:29:48] from the kind of harder edge left ideological warrior kind of message. Well, wait, can I start it? She said that. But she also said like, I mean, the message wasn't just love and rainbows. It was things are divisive right now and I want to fix that.

[00:30:02] Yes. I've got it right here. Tired of divisive Seattle politics, right? This is literally I will say this. This message is just a two my own horn for a second. Is the message we develop to run against Mike McGinn in 2013? That's right, because the premise of it was

[00:30:22] voters may not really disagree with Mike McGinn ideologically, but they find him really tiring and divisive and angry and fighting with people all the time. And like, and so we went right at divisive, divisive, divisive and let's bring people together and, you know, do this sort of unity.

[00:30:39] This is the same freaking message we were doing 10 years. By the way, Christian, Alexis, the consultant was on that campaign too and credit Alexis and Christian for a left lane candidate adopting what has really to now in recent cycles been a moderate lane message. Very effectively, right?

[00:30:56] I mean, they did a good job with that. And I don't know that that the Woo Camp has figured out they certainly didn't in the primary had a counter that. So that was one thing that went on. The other thing was this was a low turnout primary, right?

[00:31:08] This is it's a presidential year, but turnout is right now. I think it was a 32 percent in the county. It'll probably get to maybe 40 percent, maybe. So that's much more like an off year turnout, you know, typically

[00:31:22] in a primary and a municipal odd number year turnout, sort of in the high thirties to 40 percent. So we're right around there. And in those primaries, in those lower turnout primaries, in the city of Seattle, the most motivated voters in Seattle,

[00:31:39] we see this when there's controversial issues at the Seattle City Council are left progressive, you know, kind of more activist left engaged voters. They turn out in, you know, pretty religiously in these elections. And so this was a was a turnout election

[00:31:59] that actually favored Alexis in this race. Now, I think you're crossing 12 lanes of traffic to get to that. No, no, no. Well, let me finish my point. What's interesting is in an odd year municipal election, the delta between 40 percent turnout and like 55 percent turnout,

[00:32:15] which is sort of 50 to 55 is where we get to in general elections in odd years. Those voters tend to be their progressive leaning. But they're what I would call the on vogue term these days is thermostatic, right? They tend to react to what they're seeing

[00:32:32] and what they're liking or not liking about what's going on in municipal government right now. Those voters in the last couple of election cycles have turned against the left, right? Because they thought it was too ideological, too reactive, too performative, whatever you want to say.

[00:32:45] We've you've heard me make all these arguments. But the real question is, do those voters in this general election turn against Tonya Wu and this council to your point, Erica, because they're reading this council as over overstepping or becoming too ideological in the other.

[00:33:02] Well, I think that's a question. I mean, there I have never seen so many just council meetings where, you know, in a very short span of time, the public has been kicked out of council chambers.

[00:33:13] And I've never seen the council retreat to its offices and call off a meeting. And, you know, in past years, they wouldn't have been able to meet on Zoom. So that would have just been the end of the council meeting

[00:33:23] as they did this week when, you know, there were some public commenters who didn't get to speak. They got very upset about that. We're yelling. And, you know, the council kind of had this, you know, what appeared like a big public tantrum.

[00:33:35] And I think people are really turned off by that stuff. I mean, to the extent that people are paying attention, there is a vibe that this council is sort of angry, you know, and like as Alexis, I think, capitalized on, it feels very divisive right now.

[00:33:49] And these are people who generally making it divisive, though. Like it's the people. I mean, as much blame has got to follow the people yelling. Oh, absolutely. The people were not yelling obscenities. I mean, I know you like to sort of make these scenarios up in your mind.

[00:34:04] What would David hide? Say, I mean, I have to jump in with his tape. I don't know what to take on something that would annoy both of us. OK, OK. Oh, well, here's here's my annoying thing. People keep saying registered voter turnout is low,

[00:34:20] but that is only compared to the last two cycles, 2020, 2022. It's really important to remember that we, you know, 2020 turnout. This is like going back a couple moments. But in 2020, our August primary turnout was the best in the state since 1964.

[00:34:38] Before that, we were looking at barely 35 percent in 2016 for August primary turnout in 2012. It was what, 38.5 percent? Like really bad turnout in the Obama and, you know, the Trump election. So I just want to say like our turnout is like leveling out,

[00:34:59] but it's not it's only low if you think about the last four years. OK, fair point. Did that annoy you? Yes. How dare you? How dare you? I and the other annoying thing I have to say.

[00:35:14] And the other thing I have to say that's annoying is most people do not follow city council as closely as you two. And I know that I just when I hear people talk about city council, there is just this general meme.

[00:35:27] And it's been here since I came here in 2017. The council is doing this. The council is doing that. They might be doing things that they're really doing. They might, you know, they're tying the cops hands. They're trying to get rid of big business or tax big business.

[00:35:40] They're bought by Amazon. I remember standing, listening to Andrew Lewis in 2020, get harangued by some some folks who were handing out weed to homeless folks in City Hall Park. They were haranging him about, oh, well, the city council is bought by Amazon.

[00:35:55] This is after 2019, when the Amazon funded candidates all lost to folks like Andrew Lewis. Yeah, I mean, that's why I say Andrew Lewis. I mean, it's not it's not it's not facts necessarily. It's vibes and I think divisive is a vibe.

[00:36:09] And I don't and I don't think, you know, Sunday, it's because, you know, that we should blame the public that once they're 60 seconds where they're allowed to actually address the people that represent them and that they pay. I think it is it is a feeling.

[00:36:22] And I don't think everybody on the city council, you know, including those who agree politically with Sarah Nelson, the city council president, I think a lot of them would probably have preferred to just have that the goddamn meeting and listen to the last, you know,

[00:36:35] 10 people and give them each their 60 seconds instead of holding up the meeting for nearly 40 minutes between all these recesses and going back, you know, slinking back to their offices. I mean, I think that was a bad look for the council, you know,

[00:36:49] whether or not whoever you want, you know, whether or not you think the public should be allowed to speak. That that look, that maybe I didn't actually watch this last council meeting. So it's hard for me to kind of comment on the dynamics

[00:36:59] of what exactly were going on that room and why they why they decided to retreat into chambers and sort of proceed virtually. So I'm not going to comment on that. I do want to finish a point which I think relates to both both

[00:37:11] what both of you have said here, which is to finish my turnout point because Erica, you're making the point we're in a presidential year election, right? We are going to have something like 80 percent turnout, right? In the in the general, much, much higher than the 50 to 55 percent turnout

[00:37:25] that we have in odd numbers years in our typical municipal elections. So to Scott's point, I do think this is a test of that. We will see that in November. So I was making the point about, you know, the kind of delta between

[00:37:38] primary turnout and kind of traditional off year general election turnout. Those voters, I think, aren't super left progressive. But what I do suspect, Erica, to your point, is once turnout levels get past a certain threshold, I don't know what it may be 60 percent

[00:37:56] that the voters who are turning out are people who are only turning out in a presidential year. They're they're low frequency voters, younger, probably, you know, they're turning out because they want to vote against Trump or for the Democratic candidate, Kamala.

[00:38:11] And they probably are more progressive, significantly more progressive. So I don't think it's a linear line of what what turnout means that more turnout makes you more progressive. But I do think this is going to be an interesting test case where it could

[00:38:24] very much benefit Alexis Rink if, you know, we get the 80 percent turnout in the last 20 percent is is is is tilting pretty progressive. That's a challenging environment for a candidate like Tonya Wu. All right, we are running out of time.

[00:38:40] I want to see, Scott, if you want to get the last word, is there anything you want to say, plug your podcast? Yeah, what are you guys talking about next? Yeah. What's on the next episode? On the next episode is our takes on the primary.

[00:38:54] We might not fight as much, but so it's me and Libby Dejman, my co-host. To your, you know, you know, it's your loss, right? That's what people love about me. I mean, we fight secretly. We fight. Do you see how we interrupt, Scott?

[00:39:10] Do you see what I live with? Yeah, we're just making corny Dungeons and Dragons jokes. That's our that's our brand. So we're talking about the primary results. We're talking about the state. We're talking about Congress. Gosh, we didn't even get to D3 in Southwest Washington.

[00:39:26] I'm curious to hear what Sandeep thinks of those results with Marie Gluis and Camp Perez. We'll be talking about that. And then we're going to tackle one of my favorite topics, which is do we vote too much? Talk about turnout.

[00:39:40] Talking about this is the fourth election this year in much of the state, not King County necessarily, but in many counties in the state, counting special elections, counting presidential primaries, counting this primary. This is our fourth election of the year. Do we vote too much?

[00:39:55] We vote more than any other democracy in the world. Does it have an effect? And I will be going to the Cemetery District in Spokane to talk to a libertarian cemetery district commissioner. It's going to be a really good time.

[00:40:10] So that is on sound politics, wherever you get your podcast. And do you guys do an episode a week or what's your free? We do an episode a week. Yeah. And it's supposed to be a tight 30. So much like this podcast, it's supposed to be a tight 30.

[00:40:25] We're supposed to be a tight 30. Yeah. Oh, instead of a loose 45, which is what I think. You're looking OK. So we're going to end it there. Scott Greenstone, KUW cohost of Sound Politics with Libby Dinkman. Thanks for being on Seattle Nice.

[00:40:44] I'm Erica C. Barnett and my other cohost is Sandeep Koushik. David Hyde will be back next week to go to patreon.com slash Seattle Nice to support our show and give us money. Give us money. And our show is edited as always by Quinn Waller. Thanks.