Seattle about to get NY's hammer-and-sickle treatment. Socialism is coming your way

In 1 of the astir telling municipal elections successful caller memory, activist-organizer Katie Wilson has toppled incumbent Bruce Harrell successful Seattle, defeating the politician by the slimmest of margins (50.2% to 49.5%).

The upset’s value goes acold beyond the ballot count. It represents a convergence of 2 forces: a volunteer-driven run successful a metropolis agelong accustomed to turnover astatine City Hall, and a nationalist swell of vigor down socialist-branded candidates present creeping into adjacent deep-blue metros.

Combined with the socialist triumph of Zohran Mamdani successful New York, adjacent liberals are tense astir what this means for America’s iconic cities. The wide Washington Post editorial committee noted that Seattle and New York residents volition soon witnesser "two real-time experiments successful extremist governance."

MEET THE SOCIALIST MAMDANI-STYLE MAYOR JUST ELECTED TO RUN WEST COAST'S 5TH LARGEST CITY

Wilson entered the contention with nary elected acquisition but a agelong résumé of power successful Seattle’s activistic ecosystem. As caput of the Transit Riders Union, she championed policies that kneecapped car infrastructure successful favour of buses and bikes. Behind the scenes, she helped trade the city’s disastrous payroll taxation — a determination that pushed Amazon to displacement thousands of jobs crossed Lake Washington to business-friendly Bellevue. She was besides a cardinal legislative unit down the defund-the-police effort that triggered a historical staffing illness and a transgression surge the section is inactive struggling to retrieve from.

Mayor-elect Katie Wilson entered the 2025 contention with nary elected acquisition but a agelong résumé of power successful Seattle’s activistic ecosystem. (Katie Wilson for Seattle)

On the run trail, aft her unexpectedly beardown superior showing, Wilson leaned hard into an assertive crushed game. Her door-knocking cognition and grassroots organizing gave her conscionable capable precocious momentum to borderline retired a win.

Unlike her socialist comrade Zohran Mamdani successful New York City, Wilson’s run avoided labeling her ideas arsenic socialist. It was rooted successful addressing affordability, homelessness and nationalist transit—issues that chopped crossed enactment lines and tapped into elector frustration. But she didn’t deterioration the socialist individuality connected her sleeve, and astir voters wouldn’t person identified her arsenic one.

Meanwhile, Harrell — the sitting mayor, a seasoned section person erstwhile considered an casual frontrunner for reelection—grew complacent aft 4 years of cautious and lazy leadership. He was reluctant to determination excessively rapidly connected docket items that could upset the Democratic base. He vowed to tackle homelessness and transgression with urgency, yet ne'er mustered the governmental courageousness to present the sweeping changes voters demanded aft years of leniency that deepened the crisis.

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell speaks onstage during opening nighttime of the Seattle International Film Festival astatine the Paramount Theatre connected April 14, 2022, successful Seattle, Washington.  (Mat Hayward/Getty Images)

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Consequently, the aforesaid voters who enactment him into bureau either didn’t ballot oregon weren’t enthusiastic capable to backmost him again. His run didn’t summation vigor until the last weeks of the race, by which clip the dynamics were already stacked against him. Making matters worse, past wasn’t connected his side—a Seattle politician hasn’t won reelection since Greg Nickels successful 2005.

What Wilson pulled disconnected bears a striking resemblance to Mamdani’s run successful New York City: a self-described antiauthoritarian socialist moving against constitution powerfulness with a connection of affordability, proscription entree and bold wealthiness redistribution. Mamdani’s triumph is already being hailed arsenic a breakthrough by the socialist helping of the Democratic Party.

New York City Democratic mayoral campaigner Zohran Mamdani celebrates arsenic helium takes the signifier astatine his predetermination nighttime ticker enactment astatine the Brooklyn Paramount connected November 4, 2025 successful the Brooklyn borough of New York City.  (Michael M. Santiago/Getty)

Wilson’s triumph successful Seattle follows that pattern. She portrayed the incumbent arsenic portion of the presumption quo—even though her policies would revisit the precise measures that brought Seattle to the brink of catastrophe conscionable 4 years ago.

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While Seattle whitethorn person its ain governmental identity, Wilson’s triumph is much than a section story. It’s portion of a broader governmental infinitesimal successful which insurgent progressives pat into grassroots energy, outwork complacent incumbents, and thrust a question of elector discontent. Meanwhile, King County, wherever Seattle is located, didn’t adjacent interruption 50% elector turnout. Once again, activists were handed the powerfulness to find the outcome.

Now the existent questions begin: What volition a Wilson medication mean for Seattle’s concern assemblage and nationalist safety? The alarm bells are already ringing. Wilson’s argumentation positions thin powerfully anti-business: she campaigned connected taxation hikes for the wealthy, expanded authorities engagement successful lodging and transit, and deeper tenant protections.

For the city’s employers, start-ups, and downtown retail and hospitality industries, the connection is clear: the regulatory and fiscal situation is astir to displacement — and not successful their favor.

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Seattle concern owners are close to beryllium nervous. Empty storefronts, precocious office-vacancy rates (above 30%) and a post-pandemic economical descent person already battered downtown. One gym proprietor told maine he’s not definite present is the champion clip to unfastened a determination successful Seattle.

Now the existent questions begin: What volition a Wilson medication mean for Seattle’s concern assemblage and nationalist safety? The alarm bells are already ringing.  (Reuters/Chris Helgren)

On policing and crime, Wilson has sought to reassure moderates, telling "The Jason Rantz Show" connected Seattle Red 770 AM, that she has "evolved" connected policing and does not enactment wholesale defunding. But she remains a progressive activistic whose run rhetoric formed the incumbent arsenic insufficiently responsive to homelessness'-driven upset and affordability failures.

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Will her attack to nationalist information displacement resources toward mental-health responders and embedded societal services—and distant from accepted constabulary enforcement? Will the city’s already fragile concern districts consciousness little protected? In a metropolis wherever information perceptions measurement heavy connected ft traffic, leasing rates and capitalist confidence, uncertainty astir policing strategy is simply a hazard factor.

For Seattle, the stakes couldn’t beryllium higher. If Wilson commits to a full-scale socialist agenda, concern owners and taxpayers could soon look an unworkable clime of higher taxes, heavier regulations and experimental public-safety models. That anxiousness isn’t unfounded; erstwhile a politician decides the concern assemblage is portion of the problem, structural alteration follows. Seattle has already lived done the fallout of akin policies during the Black Lives Matter era.

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The question present is whether the metropolis tin sorb her imaginativeness without suffering concern flight, commercialized pullback and economical instability. The concern community, instrumentality enforcement enactment and voters who believed they were choosing stableness merit clarity. Yet galore fearfulness they already cognize however this communicative ends.

Wilson’s triumph volition reverberate beyond Seattle. But present astatine home, immoderate consciousness of economical steadiness remained whitethorn person conscionable been replaced by ideological adrenaline—and the concern assemblage is bracing for impact.

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