Something told me not to write about the election last Tuesday or even Wednesday. It turned out to be the right move. Between the first ballot count on Tuesday night at 8PM and Friday night at about the same time, Kshama Sawant went from being behind by about 10 percentage points to winning the election with about 51.6 percent of the vote. What happened? What does it mean? What should you do next?

Sawant isn’t the problem

I’ve been saying for years now that Sawant isn’t the greatest threat to the business climate in Seattle. Any scan of the record will show that she’s been extraordinarily ineffective as a Councilmember. For example, she failed to gain support to implement $150 million tax on jobs. That proposal went nowhere. Or did it? What ended up happening was her colleagues on the Council and the Mayor ended up picking up the idea, cutting it to $75 million, passing the proposal, and then the Mayor signed it into law. Was Sawant to blame for the brief life of the “Head Tax?” It was her fellow Councilmembers and the supposedly business friendly Mayor that passed the measure.

And here’s something else to think about: now that millions were spent to remove her from office and it failed, does Sawant now have even more power? The answer is yes. 

The Chamber and business leaders failed

This brings me to the next point: in spite of the fact that other Councilmembers are to blame for harmful policies becoming law, the Chamber of Commerce and some business leaders downtown are obsessed with Sawant. This obsession arguably assured the election of Lisa Herbold 4 years ago. Then, like this year, business interests and Vulcan spent lots of cash trying to get a left leaning candidate to take out Sawant and failed. Meanwhile, Shannon Braddock lost to Herbold in District 1 by dozens of votes. Herbold is far more dangerous to development and growth that Sawant will ever be. Yet, the Chamber and other Sawant obsessed interests downtown and Vulcan spent huge with no success.

What’s the problem?

Take any 100 voters in Seattle and talk with them. Most of them will likely blame Amazon and jobs for something, whether its homelessness or the closing of Value Village. They’re angry, surly, and resentful. The bitterest folks in town are single-family homeowners who either want to tax homelessness out of existence, punishing Amazon and businesses and then pouring money into a failing system, or hope that someone will just put all those homeless people in jail. There’s not a lot of nuance here. Anyone who wants to win office in Seattle has to respond to this, and in this election the “tax it to death” crowd won.

This is not going to change by fielding people who aspire to office to walk into the buzz saw of all that resentment. As we saw with Egan Orion, candidates will end up mimicking whatever gets the biggest response, including supporting things like rent control. A candidate with a spine, who stands up the mob, will lose – every single time. Unless and until we can persuade those voters that while their frustration is justified, the answer is not more taxes, money, or enforcement but more housing. Throwing big money at weak and lightweight candidates like Orion only confirms the worst narrative told by lefties and socialists: business, developers, and Amazon control the city. Obviously they don’t.

What’s the answer?

I’ve outlined it already; it takes three steps. First, we need to build a strong and steady response to the bad narratives out there about growth and jobs. Jobs do not cause homelessness. New housing does not make all housing less affordable. Rent control won’t help anyone except a few lucky people in rent-controlled units.

Second, we’ve got to advocate for good ideas that are both efficient and compassionate, like cash for rent. We can’t just be against their ideas, or capitulate to paying bribes to ease permitting for specific projects or because somehow we can make it work. We need to hold the line on market-based solutions that aren’t about more money, but using the resources we have more efficiently and letting people who build housing do it without restraint of overregulation.

Third, we’ve got to figure out why people are so resentful toward Amazon, business, and new development and why they believe the notion of the single pie; when someone else’s slice is bigger, it’s because mine got smaller. People get the logic of baking more pies (or bread), but we’ve to find the right messages to switch that voice on in their heads so that it is louder than the “tax the rich” voice.

You need to invest in a different approach

You need to click on the button below and invest in something better. The approach I describe is not free. It’s going to cost money and take time. Let’s get started today.