This year, vot­ers in Spokane have the respon­si­bil­i­ty of decid­ing who the city’s chief exec­u­tive should be for the next four years. They face a stark choice, between incum­bent Nadine Wood­ward, an acolyte of Repub­li­can Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers, or Lisa Brown, a for­mer Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­ate major­i­ty leader who is well known in the Lilac City and used to rep­re­sent it in the Legislature.

In tonight’s ini­tial results, Brown has over 46%, a plu­ral­i­ty, while Wood­ward is under forty per­cent, a result that like­ly comes as a sur­prise to many polit­i­cal observers. Wood­ward looks incred­i­bly vul­ner­a­ble, despite the enor­mous amount of mon­ey lined up behind her. It’s a bad night for the Wood­ward camp. Brown, mean­while, is rid­ing high, and looks well posi­tioned to be the next mayor.

Spokane oper­ates under a strong may­or form of gov­ern­ment, mean­ing the may­or is an inde­pen­dent­ly elect­ed posi­tion rather than a mem­ber of the city coun­cil. The may­or is respon­si­ble for appoint­ing and remov­ing depart­ment heads, propos­ing bud­gets to city coun­cil, and enforc­ing city laws and ordinances.

They can also veto leg­is­la­tion sent to them by the council.

As men­tioned, incum­bent Nadine Wood­ward is seek­ing a sec­ond term.

Pri­or to win­ning four years ago, Wood­ward worked as a news broad­cast­er at KREM and KXLY. Her cam­paign and sub­se­quent term has come under fire due to her heavy sup­port from the Spokane Asso­ci­a­tion of Real­tors. To date, the bulk of her $420,000 in cam­paign funds (a Spokane elec­tion fundrais­ing record) has come from busi­ness­es, real estate devel­op­ers, and cor­po­ra­tions.

Since tak­ing office in 2020, Wood­ward has faced heavy crit­i­cism from social ser­vice orga­ni­za­tions, pro­gres­sives, and the city council.

Some key issues raised dur­ing her tenure include the mis­man­age­ment of city funds, her insuf­fi­cient and lack­lus­ter response to Spokane’s home­less cri­sis, and the dis­as­trous Trent Shel­ter fias­co. Although the posi­tion of may­or is offi­cial­ly non­par­ti­san, Wood­ward is a Repub­li­can and is aligned with Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers and her sup­port­ers. Notably, there was a mishap with a tweet post­ed from her account that was clear­ly intend­ed to be post­ed to McMor­ris-Rodgers’.

Wood­ward has described her­self as a “cham­pi­on” for pub­lic safe­ty, hous­ing, eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment, and home­less­ness in Spokane.

While it is true that the city estab­lished a vio­lent crimes task force and a behav­ioral health unit while she may­or, Spokane’s prop­er­ty crime rate remains stub­born­ly high, and Spokane res­i­dents have con­tin­ued to com­plain about slug­gish law enforce­ment response and a per­ceived lack of safety.

Mean­while, the unshel­tered pop­u­la­tion in Spokane has risen by over 52% since 2020. Wood­ward has sup­port­ed sit-lie laws (despite their uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty if there is no shel­ter space avail­able – which in Spokane, there isn’t), and opposed man­dat­ing emer­gency warm­ing and cool­ing shel­ters to pro­tect peo­ple against Spokane’s increas­ing­ly extreme weath­er swings.

Wood­ward uses right wing log­ic in her polit­i­cal think­ing, which means that she believes that being home­less­ness is a choice, rather than the result of inter­lock­ing socioe­co­nom­ic fac­tors that leave those already strug­gling under struc­tur­al oppres­sion more vul­ner­a­ble to becom­ing home­less and stay­ing unhoused.

Late­ly, she has been pitch­ing her­self as the “law and order” candidate.

Brown, a for­mer Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Com­merce Direc­tor, made it clear she was in it to win it when she left her job to chal­lenge Woodward.

Brown has a lengthy his­to­ry of activism and pub­lic ser­vice, begin­ning in 1992 when she was elect­ed to the Wash­ing­ton State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. She even­tu­al­ly moved to the State Sen­ate in 1996, and served as Demo­c­ra­t­ic Major­i­ty Leader from 2005 to 2012. She was the first woman to hold the posi­tion in state his­to­ry. In 2018, she ran to rep­re­sent Washington’s 5th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, chal­leng­ing McMor­ris Rodgers.

She did­n’t win, but she did make an impres­sive show­ing for a Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date in a heav­i­ly Repub­li­can con­gres­sion­al district.

She then served as direc­tor of the Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Com­merce, start­ing in 2019. There, she devel­oped the Small Busi­ness Resilien­cy Net­work, worked to bring broad­band to under­served com­mu­ni­ties, and helped admin­is­ter fund­ing for local gov­ern­ments, tribes, non­prof­its, and small busi­ness­es dur­ing the dis­as­trous COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. She stepped down a few months ago, just before she announced her can­di­da­cy for Spokane’s top elect­ed position.

Brown has been active in Spokane’s com­mu­ni­ty for near­ly four decades, vol­un­teer­ing and advo­cat­ing with local orga­ni­za­tions to sup­port vic­tims of domes­tic vio­lence and LGBTQ+ populations.

She takes a marked­ly dif­fer­ent approach than her rival with regards to Spokane’s most press­ing issues. Where­as Wood­ward views home­less­ness as the result of per­son­al choic­es, Brown wants to focus on increas­ing afford­able hous­ing and more invest­ment in pre­ven­tion strate­gies, such as employ­ment ser­vices, men­tal health sup­port, strength­en­ing edu­ca­tion­al institutions.

She’d also work with local com­mu­ni­ty part­ners to ensure their pro­grams and resources are more acces­si­ble for all.

Though Brown doesn’t have the cor­po­rate finan­cial back­ing Wood­ward does, she brings expe­ri­ence, name recog­ni­tion, and a bevy of endorsements.

(Full dis­clo­sure: I am a vol­un­teer for Lisa’s cam­paign in my indi­vid­ual capac­i­ty as an activist. NPI does­n’t endorse can­di­dates for pub­lic office or engage in elec­tion­eer­ing for or against any can­di­date.)

Also chal­leng­ing Wood­ward is Tim Archer, Pres­i­dent of the Spokane Fire­fight­ers Union. Archer served as a fire­fight­er for twen­ty years before being dis­missed for refus­ing to become vac­ci­nat­ed against COVID-19. He, like oth­er right-lean­ing can­di­dates, has been cam­paign­ing on pub­lic safe­ty, decry­ing the “deplorable” state of Spokane’s streets. Accord­ing to Cross­cut, he is also opposed to repro­duc­tive free­dom and gen­der-affirm­ing health­care.

Archer had 11.44% of the vote in ear­ly returns.

In fourth place this evening is chal­lenger Patrick McK­ann. McK­ann declares on his web­site that he is “just a dad run­ning for May­or of Spokane.”

He has expe­ri­ence as a wildlife biol­o­gist, sta­tis­ti­cian, and craftsman.

He is now a small busi­ness own­er, build­ing yurts for clients online.

His envi­ron­men­tal­ly-focused cam­paign has promised to make per­ma­nent pro­tec­tions for the nat­ur­al lands sur­round­ing the area and imple­ment traf­fic safe­ty mea­sures to ease con­ges­tion and speed­ing issues.

In fifth place tonight is Kel­ly Stevens, an employ­ee of the Streets Department.

Her cam­paign has been focused on home­less­ness and pover­ty, with a par­tic­u­lar focus on gang vio­lence. She has first­hand expe­ri­ence with Spokane’s hous­ing crisis–she her­self lost her hous­ing dur­ing the 2008 recession.

How­ev­er, she lacks a cam­paign web­site, and has offered lit­tle in the way of cam­paign pro­mo­tion aside from some inter­view spots with local news stations.

It’s a rea­son­ably safe assump­tion that Wood­ward and Brown will be the final­ists com­pet­ing in the Novem­ber gen­er­al election.

Brown can expect an even big­ger avalanche of cor­po­rate mon­ey oppos­ing her may­oral bid in the fall. There will be prob­a­bly be mail­ers, radio ads, and tele­vi­sion spots decry­ing her can­di­da­cy from PACs financed by Wood­ward back­ers. It could be one of the ugli­est autumn cam­paigns the Lilac City has ever seen.

But for tonight, at least, Brown and Spokane pro­gres­sives can cel­e­brate a real­ly good ini­tial show­ing that will put the doubters on notice. Democ­rats have a real oppor­tu­ni­ty to change the lead­er­ship of the state’s sec­ond largest city this year.

It’s going to be a real race!