Bruce Harrell, the mayor of Seattle, held an unusual press conference at City Hall on Thursday afternoon, after calling Katie Wilson to concede, “welcoming her to City Hall in the near future,” he told reporters.
Wilson, who has accused Israel of “genocide” and whom the Council on American-Islamic Relations endorsed, led Harrel by nearly 2,000 votes, after the state released its latest ballot numbers on Wednesday evening, prompting the Seattle Times and others to call the race for Wilson.
The socialist had 138,489 votes (50.19%) to the incumbent’s 136,513 votes (49.48%), according to state figures. The state has been releasing new numbers around 4 p.m. local time every day in the more than a week since Election Day.
“I looked at the numbers and thought it was appropriate to concede,” Harrell told reporters. “There are no winners and losers in the game of politics. It’s a continuum. Seattle will be fine.”
The mayor, who earned endorsements of local pro-Jewish PACs, said of the incoming mayor’s team, “I believe in our hearts that they want the same thing—fairness, justice, peace, equity, equality.”
“They’re gonna fight for safety,” he said. “I pray that they are fighting with love.”
He then added that “my humor is a form of love,” and after his wife Joanne Harrell, who was standing beside him, laughed, he added, “That wasn’t a joke.”
The mayor urged Wilson’s incoming administration to maintain his commitment to safety, education and economic development. He said Wilson’s administration will have “new ideas” and “earned that right.”
“We can’t lose jobs here in Seattle, and they have to understand that,” he said.
Harrell joked that in his 16 years of public service, he’d made “exactly 16 mistakes” and that when he delivered an annual state of the city address, he “actually wanted to rap it.”
“I wanted to spit a rhyme,” he said.
He joked that he would pursue an acting career, and that he would sing and rap. “I’m gonna be Master B. Ruce,” he said. “When you see me, call me Master B. Ruce.”
He said that he has not ruled out running for office again. He told reporters that he is “a man of faith” and that God “writes our next chapters.”
“Will I run for another office?” he said. “Don’t sell me short on my acting and rapping now. We’re gonna take a little time and put some things in prayer.”
Later in the day, Wilson said at a press conference that she now has “a strong mandate.”
“As a progressive and a socialist, I believe in good governance,” she said. She added that she aims to work on universal childcare, free kindergarten to eighth grade summer care, social housing, strong worker’s rights and “progressive tax options” to fix the budget deficit.
Keith Swank, sheriff of Pierce County, Wash., and a Republican, predicted “crime will rise, prosecutions will decrease and she will fire the current police chief within a year.”
The race, in which Wilson has pulled ahead a little bit each day after trailing initially, has drawn little public comment from national Jewish organizations, including those that commented often on Zohran Mamdani’s campaign for an election as New York City’s next mayor. Mamdani has said that he would have the Israeli prime minister arrested if he comes to the city.
Regina Sassoon Friedland, who directs the American Jewish Committee’s Seattle office, told JNS that the group doesn’t endorse, “but we do speak out on policies that we support and oppose.”
“It is important to note that Wilson’s genocide claims lack factual or legal foundation,” she told JNS. “These accusations are not only baseless. They also distort realities on the ground when no mention is made of Hamas, whose announced purpose is annihilating Israel and Jews around the world.”
“Now that she has been elected, we urge mayor-elect Wilson to commit to ensuring the safety of Seattle’s Jewish community and its institutions by supporting the Seattle Police Department and working with Jewish communal leaders,” Sassoon Friedland told JNS.
“We will also oppose any attempts to adopt BDS into city policy, which aims to isolate and dismantle the world’s only Jewish state and has harmful effects on Jews in the United States,” she said.
Local Seattle media depicted Harrell, the incumbent, as the more moderate candidate.
“Progressivism has become politically homeless. It’s not bold enough for the energized left and far too radical for moderates and conservatives,” Andrea Suarez, founder and executive director of the grassroots group We Heart Seattle, told JNS.
“Bruce Harrell represented this exhausted middle ground, unable to satisfy anyone,” Suarez said.
Wilson has been encouraging voters to verify that their ballots were counted, in case ballots needed to be corrected, or “cured,” to make them count. Harrell did not use his social media accounts to encourage the same.
Local civic groups expressed frustration at what they considered the incumbent’s passive approach.
“With record-low turnout and record-high write-ins, Katie Wilson won not because voters believed in Democratic socialism, but because Harrell squandered his opportunity,” Suarez told JNS.
“He spent more time positioning himself against Trump—irrelevant to municipal governance—than addressing the concerns of constituents watching their city deteriorate,” she said. “Had Harrell shown genuine gratitude to grassroots groups like We Heart Seattle and A Cleaner Alki, organizations doing the work his administration wouldn’t, he could have won thousands of votes.”
