On the Seattle School Board races:
"...against hysterical claims about an imagined mass of impending school closures." Well, it was Superintendent Brent Jones who put out a number - 20 - of schools to close. There are 100 schools so that's a fairly large number. And again, the fluffy manner that The Stranger blows off school closures is appalling, given what all that means (and they appear to have no real idea all the different aspects of school closures including that if a public school building is not in use, the right of first use goes to....charter schools operators).

Also, I would guess that most of your election board don't have kids. Gitenstein has one SPS student and one private school student. Parents know they have to find the right fit for their child and if it's a private school they can afford, they will do it. Now if he had BOTH of them in private school, then I could see the point. It's a pretty weak one.

Main takeaway: SECB endorsements have gone from "Kingmaker" to "Albatross" status in the span of ten years.

I don't think you can say a city council is cheap to buy when there has been 10+ years of leadup to this

These election results represent a ‘regression to the mean/average’ as it were. The relatively more conservative candidates were not as radically right as the more progressive candidates were radically left. And after years of a left-leaning City Council and the options on the ballot, it’s only natural that Seattle voters opted to move things a bit more to the right.

Am I happy with the results? No - though I wasn’t particularly thrilled with the options to begin with…

Am I surprised by the results? Hell no.

‘Defund’ was the dumbest fucking thing progressives could have done - not the least because everyone had a different definition of what it meant (cut police funding by a specific amount, cut funding by some unspecified amount, abolish the police, etc..). Now those chickens have come home to roost.

When I dropped off my ballot at Seattle Central College yesterday I noticed that an an old-fashioned blue mailbox (or at least a fairly accurate mockup of one) had been placed immediately next to the ballot drop box. There was a sign on it that said "Voting by mail is easy." At the time I thought nothing of it -- living in Capitol Hill inures one to all manner of weirdness -- but it occurred to me later that this might well have been an attempt to get people in the most progressive part of the most progressive district to misdirect their ballots. Or, who knows, it may have been an innocent prop for a video of some kind. The Stranger (and the elections bureau) might want to look into this.

Who is on a bigger losing streak, the SECB or the GOP? SECB, keep picking them hard left progressives! It helps the rest of the electorate know who not to vote for.

District 7 is so dramatically worse off since Andrew Lewis took office, it's shocking that he got any votes. Andrew Lewis is losing not only because he (like the entire Stranger staff) wants more people to die of overdose on the sidewalks of downtown, but because he knee-jerked to join the glorious revolution in the summer of 2020 that his junior high school-self couldn't believe was actually finally happening. Failed revolutionaries usually don't win. He finally can find a job that he wants. Competently governing a city wasn't one of them.

Oh for frack's sake, just relax.

You'll see a shift at 4 pm today.

And the real numbers are Saturday's count.

It's maybe 20 percent counted out of 45 percent total turnout.

Sheesh, haven't you ever been through a fake "red wave" initial count bump?

The incumbents who have run the school district into the ground is the experience we need? Um OK. You do realize they’ve drained the emergency reserves, are bleeding enrollment, and are in lock step with the Superintendent? Who cares about “progressive,” it’s going to get very draconian very fast when the state takes over a bankrupt school district. And our elected Board Members will be shown the door.

@8:

“Seattle election results were a lot different than the MSM portrayed them on election night.

“In fact, the City Attorney race is still neck and neck right now.”

https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2021/11/09/62717950/progressives-make-impressive-gains-in-south-king-county/comments/7

@8 we'll see. Some of these totals might be out of reach. Sawants biggest comeback was 12pts and that is with her army of vote harvesters that none of the current candidates had at their disposal. In 2019 when Amazon was the focal point of the election Sawant was down 3pts on election night and Shaun Scott was down 10.5. Sawant ended up winning by 3pts (a 6pt swing), Scott gained 3pts and lost and Morales gained an additional 2pts in her win. So in the most progressive district in the city when people were motivated to vote the biggest swing was 6pts. For those who are interested in the math of it here is the current point gaps and assuming a 45% turnout here is what what each Stranger candidate would need to pull of the remaining votes to win:

D1 - 17.4 pts - 59.7%
D2 - 8.7 pts - 53.7%
D3 - 16.4pts - 60%
D4 - 10.7 pts - 57%
D5 - 39.1 pts - 68.9%
D6 - 1.9pts - 51.4%
D7 - 11.6 pts - 56.3%

Only three years until we can dump our MAGA City Attorney!

So seems idiotic when they say the 90s are back as a bad thing. We've got about as many murders in Seattle as 1994 (all time high). So now we are going to crack down like we did then and hopefully it will lead to another 25 year reduction in crime. Then in 2050 we'll get comfortable and try super goofy ideas again like legalize crime and the cycle will repeat.

@2
Exactly. I couldn't agree with you more. Anyone can go back and look at 10 years of The Stranger Voter Cheat Sheets and discern that most of their endorsed candidates have won, have held office, and left things worse off than before. Then of course the argument Stranger readers and supporters like to make is "Well, things are bad because we never had a true progressive city hall." When progressive city council members can override a mayor’s veto, that is the definition of a progressive city hall. You had that and now your reign has likely ended. Thankfully.

Note for Hannah and the SECB:

I really think you should continue to double down on the smugness, name calling, and insults about candidates that you don’t agree with or align with -- it seems to be working out so well for you, especially in the last two election cycles!

“raised money for brainless big tech lawyer Rob Saka in District 1”

“Downtown Neighbors spent $160,000 on “girl dad” Bob Kettle”

“Tanya Woo’s IE spent $127,000 on her campaign, and she will probably lose to Morales in future ballot drops. Guess she just sucks? And Morales fucking rules?”

Grow up.

But they were so close! They were finally going to Solve the Root Causes of Crime...

Making public drug use a misdemeanor is hardly going to lead to “mass incarceration.” It may be that people are just tired of Seattle being a sanctuary city for fentanyl.

@19 'Making public drug use a misdemeanor is hardly going to lead to “mass incarceration.”'

Oh? Then what "will" it do for drug addiction? Besides cost taxpayers for chasing the equivalent of traffic fines that never get paid? You don't think homeless drug addicts are going to be showing up in court or to pay your fines? Either that, or you're locking people up for a medical and economic issue, and furthering the cause of what is indeed called mass incarceration. America's gulags - the answer to everything.

@5 You should report that to the appropriate people at King Country Elections. It sounds illegal, NS in this case, like someone should indeed be arrested! Maybe even a friend of the Seattle Times editorial board.

Evan seems to have been the only SPS candidate connecting the dots between declining enrollment and the growing renters' crisis in Seattle. Or the only one talking about it. Why more Seattle "progressives" aren't shouting about this from the rooftops is a wonder. She has a smart position on homeschoolers, too. Someone is actually thinking in the land of education? Doing real vs make-believe "intersectionalism" ?

@23 SPS are finished without people who support rent control on the City Council. And eventually, ST fans, it will adversely affect your property values too.

On police response times, it sounds like no one knows what they're doing in this city. The right is just throwing money at it, and the response times will never improve; and the left doesn't seem to understand the real experiences of people who need a fast response - and not a social worker, but the police, and why.

And why is USPS mail delivery in Seattle the worst mail delivery in the entire country? Except when there's an election. Don't they know how to hire people who know how to deposit mail in the correct mailbox? And why is Seattle such a friendly town that neighbors don't return mail if it's put in their mailbox by mistake?

I keep hearing about this evidence based logic. The evidence is how Seattle is now, you idiots. What don't you understand about, your policies have created this mess. The "bad old days" you didn't even live here for, were 100% better than the downward spiral "progressives" have perpetuated.

They did bring back the 90s in one sense - some idiots sending in powder to all the county election sites in our state. Which means the count today is much smaller than it should be.

RE bringing back the '90s....

I moved to Seattle in 1989. Throughout the 90's, a one-bedroom apartment in an older building could be had for as low as $500 a month. I recall freaking out when rents were approaching $800 a month or so. Given these facts, I would think a return to the 90's would be welcome.

@24 I agree that high rent is driving people with kids out of Seattle. But the answer is not rent control, which is has been counterproductive everywhere it has been tried. The answer to the allow much more housing. When your landlord has a brand new apartment building next to his, your rent is not going to go up. Witness right now: rents are dropping slightly in Seattle after a lot more apartments came online in the past year. Let's do what works. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-06/renters-get-a-bit-of-relief-from-surge-in-apartment-construction?leadSource=uverify wall&embedded-checkout=true#xj4y7vzkg https://twitter.com/jayparsons/status/1686724887715487744

@21 according to this column in the Seattle Times, the new measure is working better than what we had been doing previously:

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattles-mild-measures-are-hardly-restarting-the-war-on-drugs/

Daugaard said about 80% of LEAD enrollees qualify for Medicaid, which pays for drug treatment. LEAD counselors help them sign up. This seems to counter the argument that Seattle can’t do this because there’s no money for drug treatment.

“In large numbers, will they get treatment? Yes,” she told me.

“It definitely works better than abandoning people out on the streets with no response,” Daugaard said.

She added: “We had this system with the police for years. We could have been doing this all along.”

My takeaway, it would appear progressives and the SECB will continue to push weak candidates to victory in the Primary only to seem them lose in the General (some of these margins are shockingly poor - like GOP gubernatorial bad).

Morales may be able to close the gap but not sure she has anything near Sawant’s ground game. And that’s about it (note, I don’t count Strauss as he was backed by the ST as well as the SECB - and he’s still trailing a dude who hardly campaigned) - the others (barring a miracle) will go down to defeat (initial margins just too large to overcome).

And sadly, you had candidates like Hollingsworth who, once upon a time, would have been a slam dunk SECB pick - alas no longer (as I guess she just wasn’t pure enough? to support over a weaker candidate like Hudson).

And as an aside, the SPS enrollment drop is happening most noticeably in K-2 within affluent areas like Queen Anne (example, John Hay). Middle Schools are seeing very little drop - some High Schools are actually seeing gains in enrollment. Hopefully SPS figures out how to reclaim the elementary families it lost during the pandemic.

Man, I guess the Kia Boyz didn't turn out to vote.

Triple the property tax levy? Congratulations! Now I have to raise the rent on my tenants

@32 I applaud you for not reading the Seattle Times, but it did endorse Hanning for D6, not Strauss.

'We’re dismissing any pretense that we want to address root causes of poverty, drug addiction, and gun violence, and instead we’re returning to the so-called tough-on-crime policies that locked up an entire generation of mostly Black young men."

well
thank
Gawd!

so much
Easier to just
IGNORE How we
Got Here than to fuck-
ing FIX THE PROBLEM(s).

plus
Satisfying!
so we can keep
doing it Over and
Over and Over and
Over and Over and O-
ver -- just like with Sweeps!

or
as I
like to
call it: Whack-
a-Homeless-Person.

jesus.

So...

The housing levy is passing by a landslide and the "law and order" challenge to the city council incumbents did pretty well. (I'm pretty sure the late counts will temper that, but whatevs). And the august political geniuses at The Stranger (Hannah, Ashley & Rich) seem disinclined to confront this mortifying conundrum.

And thusly they argue: Rich people bought the votes for the council but not for the housing levy. The voters —probably those boomers! — were fooled by the law-and-order council candidates, but they were just fine with spending money on housing. And at the same time these clearly mixed up people have no interest whatsoever in addressing the root causes?

Hmmm. Obviously, a great many voters voting for the boil-'em-in-oil! candidates also want to build and/or subsidize housing. How can this be? It almost seems like, over here, they want to do something instead of nothing and, over there, they also want to do something instead of nothing. Crazy!

Hey Seattleites,
I know many of you are moving away from the hell hole that your liberal politics have made of the City. However, don't think you can move to Eastern WA and continue to bring your liberal views to Spokane! We will reject you in every sense of the word.

We don't want you here. We don't want your liberal views. And if you choose to move here, we will make sure the Seattle Freeze looks like summer to you. Stay the hell out of our part of the state. M-kay?

oh fer
Fawkes'
sakes Guy!

you're Decades too Late.
that cow's Left the Barn
the Leebruhls've In-
fested politics and
the Chirrens with
thoughts of their
Own. how ya
gonna keep
'em On the
Farm after
that? plus

the Reds
got no
Jobs

'cept the
Governmental
Types and you Know
They only employ Commies.