Ed Murray to end political career; won’t seek reelection as Mayor of Seattle

At a press con­fer­ence this morn­ing at Alki Beach, Seat­tle May­or Ed Mur­ray announced that he has decid­ed not to seek a sec­ond term as leader of the state’s largest city, say­ing “it tears me to pieces to step away”.

Flanked by loy­al sup­port­ers, Mur­ray reflect­ed on his accom­plish­ments before say­ing the 2017 may­oral race ought not to be focused on scandal.

Mur­ray, who pre­vi­ous­ly served as a state rep­re­sen­ta­tive and state sen­a­tor pri­or to being elect­ed May­or of Seat­tle four years ago, had seem­ing­ly been in good shape for reelec­tion before the fil­ing of a law­suit last month in which he was accused of hav­ing sex­u­al­ly abused a minor many years ago.

The fil­ing of the suit, which rocked Seat­tle pol­i­tics, was accom­pa­nied by the rev­e­la­tion that oth­er men have for years made sim­i­lar claims against Murray.

The may­or stren­u­ous­ly denies the alle­ga­tions. But his han­dling of them has earned him wide­spread con­dem­na­tion from activists and media alike.

The Seat­tle Times edi­to­r­i­al board urged him to drop out of the 2017 race last month, and The Stranger fol­lowed suit yes­ter­day.

Up until this week­end, peo­ple in Mur­ray’s cir­cle were pub­licly insist­ing that he was run­ning for reelec­tion, and his most promi­nent back­ers were stand­ing by him. But then came the poll results. A sur­vey com­mis­sioned by the may­or’s camp appar­ent­ly found that the may­or’s posi­tion with the elec­torate had seri­ous­ly deteriorated.

And so Mur­ray is retir­ing rather than risk being defeat­ed in August (as Greg Nick­els and Paul Schell were) or in Novem­ber (as Mike McGinn was — by him).

Seat­tle is thus guar­an­teed to have a new may­or in 2018.

McGinn, who wants his old job back, is among a bevy of con­tenders who have stepped for­ward to suc­ceed Mur­ray. Oth­ers include activists Nikki­ta Oliv­er and Cary Moon, as well as State Sen­a­tor Bob Hasegawa, and tele­vi­sion pro­duc­er Michael Har­ris. Oth­er declared can­di­dates include Peter Alcorn, Casey Carlisle, David Ishii, Harley Lever, Mary Juani­ta Mar­tin, and Jason Roberts.

And more can­di­dates are now expect­ed to announce in the com­ing days. It could be one of the widest may­oral fields Seat­tle has seen in a long time.

For­mer Unit­ed States Attor­ney for West­ern Wash­ing­ton Jen­ny Durkan is expect­ed to launch a can­di­da­cy short­ly (with the back­ing of for­mer Gov­er­nor Chris Gre­goire), and Seat­tle City Coun­cilmem­ber Bruce Har­rell is also said to be mulling a bid.