The Stranger versus PubliCola versus The Urbanist: Comparing their August 2023 Seattle City Council endorsements

A cou­ple of weeks ago, we pub­lished an analy­sis com­par­ing the endorse­ments made by The Seat­tle Times and The Stranger for this year’s local con­tests in the Seat­tle-MLKC area. That’s been so well-received and so pop­u­lar that we’re fol­low­ing it up today with a com­par­i­son of the endorse­ments made by The Stranger with those of Pub­li­Co­la and The Urban­ist, two oth­er online pub­li­ca­tions that eval­u­ate and rec­om­mend can­di­dates for pub­lic office in our area.

Pub­li­Co­la dates back to 2009, while The Urban­ist was found­ed in the 2010s. Both are online-only pub­li­ca­tions with a focus on Seat­tle and King Coun­ty. The Urban­ist spe­cial­izes in offer­ing analy­sis and intel­li­gence that does­n’t appear else­where, with excel­lent cov­er­age of Sound Tran­sit, while Pub­li­Co­la is known for its scoops and detailed cov­er­age of Seat­tle City Hall and the King Coun­ty Cour­t­house. Both are wide­ly read by pro­gres­sive activists in the greater Seat­tle area.

The Stranger and The Urban­ist fol­low the prac­tice of pub­lish­ing their endorse­ments all at once, while Pub­li­Co­la releas­es endorse­ments in install­ments like many news­pa­pers do, with an edi­to­r­i­al for each con­test that it endors­es in.

With Pub­li­Co­la’s “Picks” now in, we can com­pare endorse­ments across all three pub­li­ca­tions. Pub­li­Co­la has only weighed in on the con­tests with no coun­cil incum­bent run­ning (Dis­tricts #1, #3, #4, and #5) while The Stranger and The Urban­ist made endorse­ments for all sev­en. Here’s a table:

The three pub­li­ca­tions were in agree­ment on who to sup­port in each con­test with no incum­bent except for Dis­trict #5. There, The Stranger went with Chris­Tiana Obey­Sum­n­er, while Pub­li­Co­la and The Urban­ist chose Nilu Jenks. Here’s a snip­pet of what each pub­li­ca­tion had to say about their endorsed candidates.

District #1

Maren Cos­ta swept the endorse­ments in this district.

“Run­ning with a strong focus on cli­mate jus­tice and work­ers’ rights, Maren Cos­ta is the can­di­date that urban­ists should sup­port in this race. A for­mer tech work­er with sol­id orga­niz­ing expe­ri­ence, Cos­ta impressed us with her under­stand­ing of how land use, build­ing codes, and trans­porta­tion pol­i­cy impact our region’s green­house gas emissions.”

– The Urban­ist

“Com­pelling back­sto­ry aside, Cos­ta is good on the issues. She sup­ports the most pro­gres­sive growth plan, she wants peo­ple to come in con­tact with cops as infre­quent­ly as pos­si­ble, she would pro­pose a local cap­i­tal gains tax, and she plans to take mon­ey from the sweeps bud­get and put it toward afford­able hous­ing. Fail­ing to put Cos­ta in this seat means we’ll like­ly get none of that.”

– The Stranger

“In this race, where every can­di­date faces a steep learn­ing curve, we’d rather vote for an inde­pen­dent-mind­ed can­di­date will­ing to take  big pol­i­cy swings than an equiv­o­ca­tor who answers yes/no ques­tions with ‘all of the above.’ ”

– Pub­li­Co­la

The Seat­tle Times endorsed Rob Saka in this con­test.

District #3

Alex Hud­son swept the endorse­ments in this district.

“Hud­son is the most qual­i­fied can­di­date for any of this year’s open seats, blow­ing the rest of the field away with her polit­i­cal acu­men, pol­i­cy chops, and deep his­to­ry of activism in the dis­trict. Hud­son has been on our radar for years as a Seat­tle activist and trans­porta­tion advo­cate who con­sis­tent­ly scores pol­i­cy wins and fund­ing for equi­table trans­porta­tion, hous­ing, and neigh­bor­hood-lev­el improvements.”

– Pub­li­Co­la

“For­tu­nate­ly for Dis­trict 3, Hud­son inar­guably boasts the broad­est and deep­est tech­ni­cal knowl­edge of the hous­ing and trans­porta­tion issues that will come before the coun­cil in the next few years, she knows how City Hall works, and she’s in the best finan­cial posi­tion to beat the more cor­po­rate can­di­date who will most like­ly to make it through to the gen­er­al election. ”

– The Stranger

“Since tak­ing the reins as exec­u­tive direc­tor at Trans­porta­tion Choic­es Coali­tion in 2018, Hudson’s track record of being involved in the most impor­tant dis­cus­sions around trans­porta­tion has con­tin­ued. From being front-and-cen­ter in the nego­ti­a­tions around the last statewide trans­porta­tion pack­age, which deliv­ered free tran­sit for kids on every tran­sit agency in the entire state, to the push to reform Sound Transit’s puni­tive fare-enforce­ment regime, Hud­son has shown she can deliver.”

– The Urban­ist

The Seat­tle Times endorsed Joy Hollingsworth in this con­test.

District #4

Ron Davis swept the endorse­ments in this district.

“Davis believes in a more walk­a­ble, bike­able, tran­sit-rich, and just Seat­tle with a home for every­one. He will vote to raise pro­gres­sive rev­enue to fund afford­able hous­ing and social infra­struc­ture that can actu­al­ly grap­ple with the scale of the home­less­ness cri­sis. He will vote to allow more hous­ing across the city as evi­denced by his op-ed in this very peri­od­i­cal argu­ing for a bold­er Alter­na­tive 6 to the Seat­tle Com­pre­hen­sive Plan. He will vote to ded­i­cate more resources to side­walks, tran­sit, and bike facil­i­ties, and we do not expect him to hide behind process and bud­get aus­ter­i­ty like so many coun­cilmem­bers have in the past.”

– The Urban­ist

“Davis is a tech guy whose does enter­prise sales con­sult­ing for star­tups, but he comes from a work­ing-class back­ground and often talks about the per­son­al expe­ri­ences that helped shape his views. Instead of pros­e­cut­ing and jail­ing drug users, Davis sup­ports super­vised con­sump­tion cen­ters staffed with med­ical work­ers who can reverse or pre­vent over­dos­es and help peo­ple access treat­ment when they’re ready—an approach that has proven far more suc­cess­ful than manda­to­ry and jail-based approaches.”

– Pub­li­Co­la

“Putting Ron Davis in this seat might rep­re­sent the biggest glow-up for any oth­er dis­trict in this elec­tion cycle. We’d be trad­ing out­go­ing Coun­cil Mem­ber Alex Ped­er­sen – the NIM­BYest land­lord simp known to man – for an eat-the-rich urban­ist with pre­mi­um pol­i­cy chops and a fire in his bel­ly to fight for dense hous­ing, anti-rent-goug­ing poli­cies, tran­sit, pro­gres­sive rev­enue, and pedes­tri­an safety.”

– The Stranger

The Seat­tle Times endorsed Mar­itza Rivera in this con­test.

District #5

This was the only dis­trict where there was a split. The Stranger went with Chris­Tiana Obey­Sum­n­er; The Urban­ist and Pub­li­Co­la backed Nilu Jenks.

“We think there are basi­cal­ly two can­di­dates urban­ists should con­sid­er vot­ing for in this race: Nilu Jenks, who we’re endors­ing, and Tye Reed,” The Urban­ist wrote, offer­ing a soft endorse­ment for a sec­ond candidate.

“Jenks is less well-known city­wide but dis­tin­guished her­self in our ques­tion­naire by push­ing hard for Alter­na­tive 6 to the com­pre­hen­sive plan, iden­ti­fy­ing sev­er­al spe­cif­ic sources of pro­gres­sive rev­enue she’d advo­cate for, mak­ing clear that she’d have vot­ed against the incar­cer­a­tion-focused drug crim­i­nal­iza­tion bill that recent­ly failed in coun­cil, and speak­ing con­vinc­ing­ly about improv­ing bike and pedes­tri­an infra­struc­ture across the city and in D5, which is miss­ing side­walks in many parts of its north­ern reach­es. Jenks also stood out to us for her clear com­mit­ment — dri­ven by a dev­as­tat­ing per­son­al expe­ri­ence — to end­ing gun vio­lence in our city.”

“For Dis­trict 5, Pub­li­Co­la picks Nilu Jenks — a cli­mate and pedes­tri­an safe­ty advo­cate who we believe will take a thought­ful, nuanced approach to head­line-grab­bing issues, like police hir­ing and pub­lic drug use, while fight­ing for safe streets, cli­mate resilien­cy hubs, and expand­ed access to shelter.”

“One of her first pri­or­i­ties, Jenks said, would be estab­lish­ing a cli­mate resilience hub in North Seat­tle, which would serve as both a com­mu­ni­ty cen­ter and a place where peo­ple could escape from increas­ing­ly severe weath­er caused by cli­mate change,” Pubi­Co­la’s endorse­ment went on to say. “The city will open its first resilience hub in Bea­con Hill, but Jenks says the north end—whose obso­lete Lake City Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­ter closed in April after a fire — would ben­e­fit from a new com­mu­ni­ty cen­ter that dou­bles as a refuge from smoky summers.”

“Chris­Tiana Obey­Sum­n­er would bring a wealth of lived expe­ri­ence to the City Coun­cil as a dis­abil­i­ty jus­tice advo­cate, a for­mer sex work­er, and some­one who has expe­ri­enced home­less­ness,” The Stranger wrote. “They’re also a tax wiz, a big-time den­si­ty advo­cate, and a social equi­ty defend­er who has worked with local gov­ern­ments. In a city that is fail­ing to pri­or­i­tize pedes­tri­an safe­ty and resist­ing efforts to build enough hous­ing, the coun­cil needs the depth of knowl­edge and the pow­er of pres­ence that Obey­Sum­n­er would bring to the council.”

The Seat­tle Times endorsed Cathy Moore in this con­test.

The other three districts

As men­tioned, the incum­bents run­ning in the three remain­ing dis­tricts all man­aged to earn the endorse­ments of The Stranger and The Urban­ist. The Seat­tle Times, on the oth­er hand, has backed a chal­lenger to each, seek­ing a com­plete reset on the Coun­cil. The Times picked Bob Ket­tle over Andrew Lewis, Pete Han­ning over Dan Strauss, and Tanya Woo over Tam­my Morales.

County and port level contests

The Urban­ist joined The Stranger and The Seat­tle Times in endors­ing Fred Felle­man for anoth­er term at the Port of Seat­tle. For coun­ty coun­cil, The Urban­ist picked Tere­sa Mosque­da (as did The Stranger) for Dis­trict #8 and Bec­ka John­son Poppe for Dis­trict #4 (The Seat­tle Times and The Stranger picked Jorge Baron).

The matchups we might see based on media endorsements

NPI now has two years of con­tin­u­ous expe­ri­ence polling local con­tests in Wash­ing­ton State. Based on that expe­ri­ence, we know that many vot­ers stay unde­cid­ed in con­tests for the city, coun­ty, port, and school board lev­els until near the end of vot­ing, espe­cial­ly in races with no par­ty affil­i­a­tion list­ed on the bal­lot. Accord­ing­ly, it’s tough to ascer­tain who’s ahead and who is fac­ing elimination.

Deci­sion paral­y­sis is espe­cial­ly pro­nounced in con­tests with large fields of can­di­dates. The more choic­es vot­ers have to pick from, the high­er the per­cent­age tends to be who aren’t sure. We have opt­ed not to poll the sev­en Seat­tle city coun­cil dis­tricts in this Top Two elec­tion, part­ly for that reason.

We also know from our polling, how­ev­er, that media endorse­ments are influ­en­tial. 50% of King Coun­ty vot­ers sur­veyed last July (mean­ing, a year ago, in 2022) by Change Research for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute said that at elec­tion time, they go to mass media like The Seat­tle Times, KING5, or KUOW (NPR) to obtain infor­ma­tion about what is on the bal­lot and make a decision.

And last year’s elec­tion results turned out very well for can­di­dates who got endorse­ments from both The Stranger and The Seat­tle Times.

So, con­sid­er­ing who won an endorse­ment from these four pub­li­ca­tions, there’s a rea­son­able pos­si­bil­i­ty that Seat­tle’s sev­en city coun­cil con­tests might yield the fol­low­ing autumn matchups:

• Dis­trict #1: Rob Saka and Maren Costa
• Dis­trict #2: Tam­my Morales and Tanya Woo
• Dis­trict #3: Joy Hollingsworth and Alex Hudson
• Dis­trict #4: Ron Davis and Mar­itza Rivera
• Dis­trict #5: Nilu Jenks *or* Chris­Tiana Obey­Sum­n­er and Cathy Moore
• Dis­trict #6: Dan Strauss and Pete Hanning
• Dis­trict #7: Andrew Lewis and Bob Kettle

It’s worth not­ing that four can­di­dates who got shut out of the media endorse­ments have man­aged to raise over $50,000 each. Those are:

• Stephen Brown, Dis­trict #1 (raised $77,154)
• Alexan­der Coo­ley, Dis­trict #3 (raised $89,363)
• Ken­neth Wil­son, Dis­trict #5 (raised $93,664)
• Olga Sagan, Dis­trict #7 (raised $57,306)

See this chart for more details.

These can­di­dates have more resources to get their mes­sage out and con­nect with vot­ers. They stand per­haps the best chance of get­ting through with no boost from a pub­li­ca­tion that makes endorse­ments in the Seat­tle media market.

There are forty-five can­di­dates in total and four­teen spots. Thir­ty-one can­di­dates are thus fac­ing elim­i­na­tion in their Coun­cil bids next Tues­day, August 1st.

Unlike the afore­men­tioned pub­li­ca­tions, NPI does­n’t endorse can­di­dates or engage in elec­tion­eer­ing for or against any can­di­date, but we do cov­er cam­paigns for pub­lic office as a media orga­ni­za­tion and pro­vide oppor­tu­ni­ties for can­di­dates to reach our read­ers. Check out our Elec­tions cat­e­go­ry if you’re inter­est­ed.