A three-way race for Seattle City Attorney: Pete Holmes barely ahead of two challengers

As the end of Fil­ing Week approached a cou­ple of months ago, three term incum­bent Seat­tle City Attor­ney Pete Holmes’ name was list­ed alone under the head­ing for that office, with seem­ing­ly no chal­lengers in sight and one ear­ly promi­nent chal­lenger hav­ing with­drawn from the race weeks before.

Then, with the Fri­day after­noon dead­line quick­ly draw­ing near, two oppo­nents emerged at last: Nicole Thomas-Kennedy and Ann Davison.

Both chal­lengers are right behind Holmes as vot­ing begins in the August 2021 Top Two elec­tion, with 53% of like­ly vot­ers not sure who they’re vot­ing for, a new poll con­duct­ed for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute has found.

Holmes does have a lead, but it’s very small.

There’s sim­ply not much dis­tance right now between his can­di­da­cy, which gar­nered 16% sup­port, and that of Thomas-Kennedy and Davi­son, who each earned the sup­port of 14% of respon­dents in the survey.

Holmes was eas­i­ly reelect­ed in 2017 and 2013, but this year could be a dif­fer­ent sto­ry, our sur­vey results sug­gest. Dis­sat­is­fac­tion with Holmes prompt­ed both The Seat­tle Times and The Stranger to recent­ly endorse his opponents.

The Times picked Davi­son, while The Stranger chose Thomas-Kennedy.

“Davi­son faces long odds; Holmes took 74.5% of the vote in 2017,” the Times edi­to­r­i­al board not­ed in its endorse­ment of her.

Long odds? Maybe, maybe not. Any of the pos­si­ble gen­er­al elec­tion matchups seem like they are on the table as pos­si­bil­i­ties at this junc­ture: Holmes vs. Davi­son. Holmes vs. Thomas-Kennedy. Thomas-Kennedy vs. Davison.

With the can­di­dates so close togeth­er and so many vot­ers unde­cid­ed, it’s just not pos­si­ble to project with con­fi­dence who will get through.

But it is strik­ing that an incum­bent who received three-fourths of the vote in his last reelec­tion and has been in office for twelve years only has 16% sup­port among like­ly vot­ers with just three weeks to go until Elec­tion Day.

Our Top Two elec­tion sur­vey, which was con­duct­ed by Change Research for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, has a mod­eled mar­gin of error of 4.3% at the 95% con­fi­dence inter­val. All 617 respon­dents par­tic­i­pat­ed online. The poll was in the field from Mon­day, July 12th, 2021 through Thurs­day, July 15th, 2021.

Here are the exact ques­tions that we asked, and the respons­es that we received:

QUESTION: The can­di­dates for City Attor­ney this year are list­ed below in the order that they will appear on the August Top Two bal­lot. Who are you vot­ing for?

[See list of can­di­dates as it was shown to respon­dents]

ANSWERS:

• Not sure: 72%
• Pete Holmes: 11%
• Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: 9%
• Ann Davi­son: 8%

FOLLOW-UP QUESTION ASKED OF UNDECIDED VOTERS ONLY: If you had to choose, who would you vote for?

ANSWERS:

• Not sure: 73%
• Ann Davi­son: 8%
• Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: 7%
• Pete Holmes: 6%
• Would not vote: 5%

COMBINED ANSWERS, BOTH QUESTIONS:

• Not sure: 53%
• Pete Holmes: 16%
• Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: 14%
• Ann Davi­son: 14%
• Would not vote: 4%

Among the unde­cid­ed vot­ers who made a selec­tion in the fol­low-up ques­tion, Davi­son was the top choice, fol­lowed by Thomas-Kennedy and then Holmes, with bare­ly any dis­tance between the can­di­dates. This is anoth­er indi­ca­tion that Holmes’ reelec­tion cam­paign could be in trouble.

Hav­ing won reelec­tion by huge mar­gins in the past, Holmes can afford to lose some sup­port and still return to office for a fourth term.

But again, it’s note­wor­thy that the vot­ers Change Research sur­veyed for us did­n’t come home to Holmes giv­en the chance (no pun intended).

The three can­di­dates each have dif­fer­ent emphases in their campaigns.

Thomas-Kennedy is run­ning on a plat­form of decrim­i­nal­iz­ing pover­ty, com­mu­ni­ty self-deter­mi­na­tion, green infra­struc­ture, law for the peo­ple, and end­ing sweeps.

“Every year the City Attor­ney choos­es to pros­e­cute pet­ty offens­es born out of pover­ty, addic­tion and dis­abil­i­ty,” her web­site says. “These pros­e­cu­tions are desta­bi­liz­ing, inef­fec­tive, and cost the City mil­lions each year.”

“We must dis­man­tle this waste­ful sys­tem of crim­i­nal punishment.”

Davi­son cites goals like “focus on improv­ing effi­cien­cies with­in divi­sion in regards to zon­ing” and “trans­form exist­ing Men­tal Health Court to spe­cial­ized Behav­ioral Health Court for cas­es that involve men­tal health, sub­stance use dis­or­der or dual diag­no­sis” as her civ­il divi­sion and crim­i­nal divi­sion pri­or­i­ties if elected.

“The City Attor­ney is a crit­i­cal link to pub­lic safe­ty, down­town and in our neigh­bor­hoods, decid­ing when to pros­e­cute many types of crim­i­nal activ­i­ty. We need bal­anced lead­er­ship that makes us smart on crime: proac­tive not reac­tive,” her web­site says. “We need a col­lab­o­ra­tive leader bring­ing actu­al compassion.”

Davi­son was an unsuc­cess­ful Repub­li­can can­di­date for statewide office last year. She ran for Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor and was elim­i­nat­ed in the Top Two election.

The front page of Holmes’ reelec­tion web­site points to his endorse­ment in the Fuse Pro­gres­sive Vot­ers Guide, which has this intro­duc­to­ry state­ment: “There are two pro­gres­sives run­ning for Seat­tle City Attor­ney who would bring dif­fer­ent approach­es to the office. Incum­bent Pete Holmes has earned more sup­port from local lead­ers and our Pro­gres­sive Vot­ers Guide part­ner organizations.”

“If re-elect­ed, Holmes has a pro­gres­sive vision for the role of city attor­ney in response to the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic and the move­ment for racial jus­tice,” Fuse’s Seat­tle City Attor­ney can­di­date entry reads.

“His pri­or­i­ties include improv­ing police account­abil­i­ty, gun safe­ty, and cre­at­ing a lev­el play­ing field in our legal sys­tem and city. To achieve these goals, Holmes pro­pos­es pass­ing stronger gun laws, reduc­ing exces­sive force on the part of the Seat­tle Police Depart­ment, vacat­ing mar­i­jua­na charges, and keep­ing peo­ple housed post-pan­dem­ic, among oth­er policies.”

Bal­lots in the August Top Two elec­tion are due back by Tues­day, August 3rd at 8 PM. A list of drop box loca­tions in Seat­tle and across Mar­tin Luther King Jr. Coun­ty is avail­able from King Coun­ty Elec­tions. Bal­lots can also be returned through the Unit­ed States Mail, but we rec­om­mend using a drop box.

NPI does not endorse can­di­dates for office and is not aligned with any of the can­di­dates run­ning for elect­ed posi­tions in Seat­tle this year. No cam­paigns were involved in the design or exe­cu­tion of this survey.