Bruce Har­rell has pre­vailed in the 2021 con­test for May­or of Seat­tle and will be the city’s next leader, rival M. Lore­na González acknowl­edged today.

In a state­ment, González con­grat­u­lat­ed Har­rell and con­ced­ed the race, as is tra­di­tion. She also released the state­ment as a series of tweets.

“With today’s bal­lot drop, it’s clear that Bruce Har­rell will be the next May­or of Seat­tle. Ear­li­er, I called him to con­grat­u­late him on a hard-fought race and wished him much luck in his efforts to make progress on the chal­lenges Seat­tle faces,” Gon­za­lez said. “To all of our sup­port­ers who poured their hearts into this cam­paign, I thank you for every­thing you did.”

“Togeth­er with our part­ners in the labor move­ment, we knocked over 100,000 doors talk­ing to vot­ers in all parts of Seat­tle about mak­ing our city more afford­able, re-imag­in­ing polic­ing and strength­en­ing pub­lic safe­ty, requir­ing wealthy cor­po­ra­tions to pay their fair share, and address­ing our home­less­ness cri­sis in a man­ner that treats our unshel­tered neigh­bors with dig­ni­ty and respect.”

“This cam­paign is over but our work con­tin­ues because the strug­gles peo­ple in Seat­tle face remain,” the out­go­ing City Coun­cil Pres­i­dent noted.

“Togeth­er, we shaped the con­ver­sa­tion on our city’s most press­ing issues, and May­or-Elect Har­rell made com­mit­ments in response to our pres­sure — to not crim­i­nal­ize pover­ty, to expand pro­gres­sive rev­enue sources, to demil­i­ta­rize the police and invest in alter­na­tive respons­es to pub­lic safe­ty calls, and to rapid­ly cre­ate appro­pri­ate shel­ter and not forcibly sweep the unhoused from pub­lic spaces.”

“As a strong pro­gres­sive move­ment, we need to con­tin­ue to orga­nize and work every day towards progress on cre­at­ing a more afford­able, just and safe city for us all. This will require us to build an inclu­sive and strong coali­tion that will serve to hold the next may­or and new City Coun­cil account­able to keep the Mayor-Elect’s cam­paign promis­es. After near­ly six hun­dred days of cam­paign­ing, I am look­ing for­ward to rest­ing, fin­ish­ing my sixth year of ser­vice on the City Coun­cil and writ­ing the next chap­ter of my pub­lic service.”

Har­rell, six­ty-three, will be sworn in as the city’s next chief exec­u­tive on Jan­u­ary 1st, 2022. He will suc­ceed Jen­ny Durkan, who chose not to seek anoth­er term.

Seat­tle May­or-elect Bruce Har­rell, pic­tured on Elec­tion Day 2021 after a meet and greet with vot­ers (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

Har­rell spent more than a decade on the Coun­cil and briefly served as May­or for a few days in 2017 fol­low­ing Ed Mur­ray’s res­ig­na­tion. He was first elect­ed to the Coun­cil in 2007, and reelect­ed in 2011 and 2015. In 2019, he chose not to seek anoth­er term on the Coun­cil. He was also a can­di­date for May­or in 2013, chal­leng­ing Mike McGinn, but was elim­i­nat­ed in the August Top Two election.

“Bruce was raised in a red­lined Cen­tral Area home, the son of a Black father and a Japan­ese moth­er, who raised him to respect not only where he came from, but also to believe in what was pos­si­ble,” his cam­paign biog­ra­phy states.

“At the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton, Bruce (#55) was a 1978 Rose Bowl cham­pi­on and received the Most Valu­able Defen­sive Play­er Award. Bruce went on to law school and then worked in tech­nol­o­gy and telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions, lat­er rep­re­sent­ing work­ing peo­ple who expe­ri­enced work­place dis­crim­i­na­tion and sup­port­ing small busi­ness­es pro bono, help­ing minor­i­ty entre­pre­neurs pur­sue their dreams.”

Har­rell cam­paigned on the fol­low­ing priorities:

• Bold ideas for eco­nom­ic recov­ery: Now is the time for big think­ing to put our city back on track and help reach our col­lec­tive potential.
• End­ing home­less­ness: We need a May­or who will take imme­di­ate and deci­sive action – urgent­ly get­ting peo­ple out of parks and streets and into sta­ble hous­ing with the on-site ser­vices they need.
• Pub­lic safe­ty & police reform: We can – and must – ensure effec­tive pub­lic safe­ty for all and address struc­tur­al racism and police bias.
• Tak­ing on the cli­mate cri­sis: Seat­tle must set the exam­ple as America’s lead­ing cli­mate-for­ward city – and we can­not leave any­one behind.
• Tran­sit, trans­porta­tion & infra­struc­ture: Access to afford­able, reli­able trans­porta­tion opens new doors and a city full of pos­si­bil­i­ties – we must expand tran­sit access and fix our decay­ing infrastructure.
• Reduc­ing gun vio­lence: We must take action to reduce gun vio­lence in our city – treat­ing it like a pub­lic health cri­sis and respond­ing with urgency, data, and bold action.
• Restor­ing arts & cul­ture: Arts are the lifeblood of thriv­ing com­mu­ni­ties. As May­or, I’ll work to dri­ve a rapid restora­tion of artis­tic promi­nence, oppor­tu­ni­ty, and acces­si­bil­i­ty – an effort inte­gral to a true recovery.
• Health­care for all Seat­tle res­i­dents: No one in our city should live with­out access to health care – let’s come togeth­er and build a sys­tem show­ing our com­mit­ment to a healthy community.

Har­rell won the August Top Two elec­tion and led in every inde­pen­dent poll lead­ing up to the cur­rent gen­er­al elec­tion, includ­ing the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute’s Octo­ber 2021 sur­vey of the Seat­tle elec­torate. 48% of respon­dents to our sur­vey, con­duct­ed for NPI by Change Research, said they were vot­ing for Har­rell in mid-Octo­ber, while 32% said González and 18% were not sure. 

As of today’s returns, Har­rell has a 47,943 vote lead over Gon­za­lez, with 61.93% of the vote. González has 37.76% of the vote. There are also six hun­dred and thir­ty write-in votes for May­or (0.32% of the votes cast in the race). 

An esti­mat­ed 140,000 bal­lots remain to be tal­lied countywide.

Har­rell was endorsed by U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Adam Smith and Mar­i­lyn Strick­land, for­mer May­or Norm Rice, for­mer Gov­er­nor Gary Locke, and cur­rent Coun­cilmem­bers Deb­o­ra Juarez and Alex Ped­er­sen, along with NPI board­mem­ber Gael Tar­leton and a long list of oth­er elect­ed offi­cials. He was also backed by The Seat­tle Times, the North­west Asian Week­ly, and unions like IBEW Local 46.

Har­rell often speaks about his upbring­ing in Seat­tle and con­nects that to his vision for the city’s future, such as in his July 2021 inter­view with NPI’s Ruairi Vaugh­an.

“This city took some­one like me, whose par­ents did not go to col­lege, who grew up in the Cen­tral Dis­trict – in a poor­er part of the neigh­bor­hood at that time, in the six­ties,” Har­rell told Vaugh­an. “It took this lit­tle boy from pub­lic schools, raised him, and now I’m in a posi­tion to pos­si­bly be the may­or and cer­tain­ly have a viable can­di­da­cy. That’s what this city is about in my mind.”

“It took my Asian grand­par­ents and my Black grand­par­ents and allowed them to have a great liv­ing for them­selves and their fam­i­lies – that’s the Seat­tle I like.”

Har­rell has now gone from may­oral hope­ful to Mayor-elect. 

His admin­is­tra­tion will begin in a lit­tle less than two months, allow­ing time for a tran­si­tion team to form and get up to speed. Incum­bent May­or Jen­ny Durkan, who will be hand­ing the baton to Har­rell, says she’s ready to get start­ed. (Durkan did not make an endorse­ment of either can­di­date dur­ing the election.)

“I’ve extend­ed my sin­cere con­grat­u­la­tions to May­or-elect Bruce Har­rell,” said Durkan. “I’ve known Bruce for over thir­ty years, and I know as May­or he will work hard for the peo­ple of Seat­tle. Vot­ers showed their com­mit­ment to a just and hope­ful future for all Seat­tle res­i­dents. I know Bruce wants every fam­i­ly to thrive in Seat­tle. He will bring peo­ple togeth­er to tack­le the tough chal­lenges we face on COVID-19, home­less­ness, pub­lic safe­ty, and cli­mate change.”

“I hope all of Seat­tle joins to sup­port him in these crit­i­cal times.”

“Over the last twen­ty months, Seat­tle has faced the great­est chal­lenges of our his­to­ry, and our next May­or will need to be pre­pared to tack­le the cur­rent and unfore­seen chal­lenges on Jan­u­ary 1st, 2022. In recent months, our office has worked on a detailed tran­si­tion plan for the next May­or and will work close­ly togeth­er with the May­or-Elect towards a seam­less tran­si­tion for the busi­ness­es and res­i­dents of this great city and for our 12,000 incred­i­ble city employ­ees. We will make sure Bruce can suc­cess­ful­ly begin this impor­tant tran­si­tion now.”