These were the most popular, widely-read Cascadia Advocate posts of 2023

As we bid adieu to 2023 and wel­come in 2024, it’s the per­fect time to look back at the most pop­u­lar Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate posts of the cal­en­dar year. Here’s the top twen­ty most read posts from the past three hun­dred and six­ty-four days, in descend­ing order. Note that some were pub­lished in years pre­ced­ing 2023.

#20 | Martin Luther King, Jr.: “One day the South will recognize its real heroes” 

Post premise/summary:

Take a few moments to read this excerpt from Dr. Mar­tin Luther King’s Let­ter From Birm­ing­ham Jail.

Pub­lished Jan­u­ary 21st, 2019

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

Post premise/summary:

Read NPI’s analy­sis of the endorse­ments pub­lished by The Stranger, Pub­li­Co­la, and The Urban­ist for Seat­tle City Coun­cil in the August 2023 Top Two election.

Pub­lished July 25th, 2023

#18 | Marie Gluesenkamp Perez makes key staff hires and prepares to take office in January

Post premise/summary:

Hav­ing pre­vailed over ultra MAGA Repub­li­can Joe Kent in the con­test for U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Wash­ing­ton’s 3rd, just as NPI’s research showed she could, Glue­senkamp Perez is now get­ting ready to take office on Jan­u­ary 3rd.

Pub­lished Decem­ber 19th, 2022

#17 | Is Dave Reichert getting ready to run for governor in 2024? It sure looks that way

Post premise/summary:

For­mer Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive and King Coun­ty Sher­iff Dave Reichert, a Repub­li­can, appears to be on the verge of join­ing the increas­ing­ly crowd­ed field of can­di­dates run­ning for Gov­er­nor of Wash­ing­ton State next year, if recent state­ments from Repub­li­can state leg­is­la­tors are any indication.

Pub­lished June 27th, 2023

#16 | Attorney General Bob Ferguson leads 2024 WA gubernatorial field, new NPI poll confirms

Post premise/summary:

25% of 773 respon­dents inter­viewed June 7th and 8th for NPI said that they pre­ferred Fer­gu­son for Gov­er­nor. 17% said they favored Repub­li­can Raul Gar­cia. 10% say they’d vote for ultra MAGA Repub­li­can Semi Bird. 9% said they pre­ferred anoth­er Demo­c­ra­t­ic con­tender: Hilary Franz, the cur­rent Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands. Anoth­er 7% back a third Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date, State Sen­a­tor Mark Mul­let. 33% were not sure.

Pub­lished June 9th, 2023

#15 | Right wing group “Let’s Go Washington” fails to qualify any of its 11 statewide initiatives 

Post premise/summary:

A right wing group formed and pri­mar­i­ly fund­ed by Repub­li­can donor Bri­an K. Hey­wood of Red­mond has admit­ted defeat in its efforts to qual­i­fy a batch of eleven right wing ini­tia­tives to the 2023 Wash­ing­ton State Legislature.

Pub­lished Jan­u­ary 4th, 2023

#14 | Time to worry about Snohomish County, too: Washington’s right wing frets about Sheriff Adam Fortney’s reelection prospects

Post premise/summary:

With less than one week to go until Gen­er­al Elec­tion Day 2023, there’s mount­ing evi­dence that local Repub­li­cans and right wing groups are grow­ing con­cerned that key races aren’t going to turn out in their favor, includ­ing a key sher­if­f’s race in Wash­ing­ton’s third largest county.

Pub­lished Novem­ber 1st, 2023

#13 | Turmoil inside the Let’s Go Washington paid signature drive: Brent Johnson pushed aside, while some petitioners have reportedly quit

Post premise/summary:

An ambi­tious effort to qual­i­fy six right wing ini­tia­tives to the 2024 Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture is strug­gling to get trac­tion with less than three months to go until the sig­na­ture sub­mis­sion dead­line arrives, NPI has learned.

Pub­lished Octo­ber 7th, 2023

#12 | Documentary Review: “Saving Capitalism” highlights an important truth about markets

Post premise/summary:

Read NPI’s review of for­mer Sec­re­tary of Labor Robert Reich’s new film about what hap­pened to our econ­o­my, now avail­able to stream on Netflix.

Pub­lished Decem­ber 16th, 2017

#11 | Joy Hollingsworth leads Alex Hudson for Seattle City Council District #3, NPI poll finds

Post premise/summary:

Seat­tle City Coun­cil hope­ful Joy Hollingsworth is the clear favorite in the close­ly-watched con­test to deter­mine a suc­ces­sor to out­go­ing Coun­cilmem­ber Kshama Sawant, a new North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute poll has found.

Pub­lished Novem­ber 3rd, 2023

#10 | White House announces Kamala Harris’ schedule for August 2023 Seattle trip

Post premise/summary:

The trip con­sists of an arrival, an offi­cial event that is open to pre­cre­den­tialed media, a brief­ing, a cam­paign recep­tion, and a departure.

Pub­lished August 14th, 2023

#9 | 2023 Washington State general election on track to join the worst turnouts of all time

Post premise/summary:

Here’s where vot­er turnout stands with twen­ty-four hours left to vote in the 2023 Wash­ing­ton State gen­er­al election.

Pub­lished Novem­ber 6th, 2023

#8 | Martin Luther King, Jr.: We have a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws

Post premise/summary:

Take a few moments to read this excerpt from Dr. Mar­tin Luther King’s Let­ter From Birm­ing­ham Jail.

Pub­lished Jan­u­ary 18th, 2016

#7 | The Seattle Times versus The Stranger: How their 2023 MLKC area endorsements compare

Post premise/summary:

With each paper’s set of endorse­ments now avail­able to scru­ti­nize, our team thought it would be inter­est­ing to do a com­par­i­son and see where the papers agree and dis­agree. You might think the papers would be far apart in their choic­es, and some­times they were… but not always!

Pub­lished Wednes­day, July 12th, 2023

#6 | Republican megadonor Brian Heywood opens his wallet to fund six-initiative signature drive

Post premise/summary:

A wealthy donor to the Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty has begun fun­nel­ing seri­ous mon­ey into a sig­na­ture dri­ve that aims to qual­i­fy a slew of six right wing ini­tia­tives to the 2024 Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture, reports filed this week with the Pub­lic Dis­clo­sure Com­mis­sion by his polit­i­cal com­mit­tee show.

Pub­lished Sep­tem­ber 15th, 2023

#5 | Bruce Dammeier (R), Bob Ferguson (D) lead hypothetical 2024 gubernatorial field in WA

Post premise/summary:

Should Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee decide against seek­ing an unprece­dent­ed fourth term, an NPI poll has found that Repub­li­can Pierce Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Bruce Dammeier and Demo­c­ra­t­ic Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son would be the two lead­ing can­di­dates to suc­ceed him in a 2024 hypo­thet­i­cal field that also includ­ed King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine (D) and Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands Hilary Franz (D).

Pub­lished March 16th, 2023

#4 | Dori Monson: 1961–2022

Post premise/summary:

Long­time right wing talk radio host Dori Mon­son died sud­den­ly this week­end of an unspec­i­fied con­di­tion after being hos­pi­tal­ized, his employ­er Bon­neville Seat­tle announced on its web­site today. Mon­son was sixty-one.

Pub­lished Jan­u­ary 1st, 2023

#3 | Documentary Review: Robert Reich’s “Inequality for All” is an essential film

Post premise/summary:

Read NPI’s review of Inequal­i­ty For All, a film based on the work of pro­gres­sive thought leader and for­mer Sec­re­tary of Labor Robert Reich.

Pub­lished April 13th, 2019

#2 | Poll Watch: Thoughts on the New York Times / Siena College’s battleground state polling

Post premise/summary:

Read the NPI team’s thoughts on a set of polls com­mis­sioned by The New York Times that field­ed in bat­tle­ground states in Octo­ber of 2023, about one year before the home stretch of the 2024 pres­i­den­tial election.

Pub­lished Novem­ber 5th, 2023

#1 | Dave Reichert slightly ahead of Bob Ferguson in 2024 WA gubernatorial race, NPI poll finds

Post premise/summary:

46% of 700 like­ly 2024 Wash­ing­ton State vot­ers sur­veyed in mid-Novem­ber for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute said they’d vote for Repub­li­can Dave Reichert if the elec­tion were being held today, while 44% said they would vote for Bob Fer­gu­son. 9% were not sure.

Pub­lished Novem­ber 16th, 2023

Honorable mention

This post was­n’t one of the twen­ty most-read, but is one of my favorites:

Repub­li­cans in Wash­ing­ton State can­not just ignore King Coun­ty and expect to win

Repub­li­can can­di­dates can win statewide, but that means they need to appeal to vot­ers in King Coun­ty, because, despite new par­ty chair­man Jim Wal­sh’s claims, there just are not enough votes in East­ern Wash­ing­ton to over­turn King County’s whims.

Pub­lished Sep­tem­ber 5th, 2023

NPI’s state and local elec­toral research remained a key draw. Pre­vi­ous­ly pub­lished reviews of Robert Reich doc­u­men­tary films con­tin­ued to draw a lot of inter­est, too. And our cov­er­age of “Let’s Go Wash­ing­ton” was also a mag­net for readers.

Thanks to every­one who read the Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate this year. See you in 2024!