Sawant on Election Night

For some, it was a vote against recalls and political shenanigans. For others, their “no” votes were pledges of continued belief in her willingness to fight and lead on behalf of the working class and tenants. The math has been worked out. Kshama Sawant will not be recalled and can continue her term — her third on the Seattle City Council — through 2023.

Thursday, King County Elections released the final count of ballots in the District 3 recall before the vote is certified and made official on Friday ending two weeks of tallying and ballot challenges since the December 7th election.

The last tally shows No ahead by 306 votes — good enough for 50.37% of the vote and the majority required to stave off the recall.

As of Thursday afternoon, 385 ballots remained challenged. Elections officials say, in all, 820 ballots were challenged in this election, and the office typically sees about half of those issues resolved. Just over 53% have been cured so far.  By Friday afternoon’s certification, a handful of additional ballots challenged over missing or non-matching signatures may also be added to the totals if any last minute cure forms were submitted. But those small updates will be inconsequential. Kshama Solidarity’s December 19th “Victory Party” at Chop Suey can go off as planned.

Still holding out hope for the recall side? “Results are not final until they are posted tomorrow after certification,” a King County Elections spokesperson informs.

“Sawant’s win is both an inspiration for embattled progressives everywhere and a road map of how to fight back aggressively and win,” Jonathan Rosenblum, a community organizer who works in her City Hall office, writes in an essay that appeared Thursday in The Nation. “And it’s all the more remarkable because this was a special election, engineered to suppress working-class turnout, with anti-Sawant forces scheduling the election between Thanksgiving and Christmas.”

“It appears,” Sawant said as her campaign declared an “apparent victory” in a press conference last week, “we have defeated the combined efforts of big business, the right wing, the corporate media, the courts, and the political establishment who sought to remove our socialist council office by any means necessary

Even so, the story of the Solidarity campaign’s defense of Sawant’s seat representing Capitol Hill, the Central District, and surrounding neighborhoods could still have an epilogue. Elections officials say a recount can be requested under state law until 4:30 PM two business days after certification.

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Recall Sawant and campaign manager Henry Bridger have been silent about any possible request as it watched its Election Night lead dwindle and disappear in subsequent tallies. King County Elections says any recount would need to be triggered — and paid for — by the campaign.

Turnout will land at 53%, a surprisingly strong result but still below the turnout in the district for Sawant’s last election to the seat in November 2019 when 59% of registered voters here participated. A 59% turnout in the recall election would have added another 4,600 ballots to the pool.

The Kshama Solidarity campaign faced the fight of its life trying to drive turnout among the district’s youngest, most transient voters with on the ground tactics including “grassroots voting centers” in an unprecedented special election. The December 7th vote fell in the middle of the holiday season after the Recall Sawant campaign failed to meet deadlines to be on the November general election ballot and decided to target a December vote. Pandemic restrictions also limited outreach and put an end to previous Sawant campaign tactics of door knocking in the Hill’s largest apartment buildings. The Solidarity campaign said one of its biggest challenges was simply informing voters than election was happening.

Organizers led by neighborhood opponents of the socialist city council member and powered by the financial contributions from a mix of residents and real estate developers outlined multiple acts they say warranted Sawant’s recall including 1) using city resources to promote a Tax Amazon initiative, 2) allowing demonstrators inside City Hall during a protest in June 2020, and 3) marching to Mayor Jenny Durkan’s home address kept secret due to her past role as a federal prosecutor.

While the charges met the legal standard required to bring a recall election in Washington, they ultimately did not convince District 3 voters that Sawant should be removed from office — though she did end up paying a pay a fine of $3,515.74 — double the amount of city funds her office spent promoting the Tax Amazon ballot initiative.

Both sides spent hugely in the battle over the recall. Kshama Solidarity reports expenditures of more than $918,000 and has more than $26,000 in debt, while Recall Sawant report they have spent $734,000 and owe another $36,000 more. The pro-recall A Better Seattle PAC is on the hook for about $161,000, mostly in expenditures on expensive television ads with Comcast.

Sawant now continues as the longest serving representative on the nine-member council. The recall defense follows her “turnaround” victory in 2019 over downtown chamber-backed Egan Orion. Sawant trounced Urban League CEO Pamela Banks in 2015 without drama. But her “comeback” win against veteran councilmember Richard Conlin in 2013 was when the Sawant camp’s legend first began to grow. On election night, Conlin was more than 7 points ahead of Sawant, with a 6,000 vote lead. Sawant, of course, refused to concede the race.

With this fourth victory at the polls, Sawant’s string of political success in the district will not necessarily translate to a push for the head of the Socialist Alternative political group to seek out a more powerful role in Seattle or the state.

“We need this kind of socialist politics at every level, not just on the Seattle City Council,” Sawant told CHS last week about a possible run for a higher office. “This is an example we’ve shown we need this in other cities. We need it in the U.S. Congress. But whether or not I personally do it. That’s a question for Socialist Alternative and for our larger movement.”

Sawant’s political style, meanwhile, seems unchecked by the recall challenge. On Election Night, Sawant attacked familiar targets, lambasting Lorena González, Teresa Mosqueda, and Tammy Morales saying the Democrats had not lifted “a finger to oppose this recall.” She hasn’t backed off the attacks since even as it has become apparent she’ll still be working with two of the three — González is wrapping up her six years on the council after an unsuccessful run against Bruce Harrell for mayor.

Another of Sawant’s frequent targets will also be leaving City Hall, of course, as Durkan ends her single term to make way for the political veteran Harrell. How much of Sawant’s rhetoric the Harrell administration will take without firing back will bear watching.

But there are also some signs of change and a broadening of Sawant’s message as her campaign increasingly emphasized that she is part of both Socialist Alternative and the growing Democratic Socialists of America.

For Sawant’s D3 opponents, getting the veteran politician to look beyond the district would be a thrilling prospect as their attention turns toward the next race for her seat in 2023.

Twice now, business community-backed candidates have been handily defeated by strong support for Sawant in the most densely populated areas of Capitol Hill and the Central District. The district’s demographics are also shifting even younger as new apartment buildings rise around those Broadway, Pike/Pine, and 23rd Ave cores. The next Sawant political opponent will likely need to be more savvy, and much younger than Pamela Banks, Egan Orion, or Henry Bridger.

In November, D3 voters preferred González over Harrell for mayor, Nikkita Oliver for the council, and Nicole Thomas-Kennedy for city attorney.

But there are moderating impacts from the changing population in District 3. Like the rest of the city, it is also becoming wealthier. After the recall, the next opponent to face Kshama Sawant, then, isn’t likely to be like those who faced her through the 2010s, but who best could represent the new younger, wealthier, still left-leaning but maybe not that left-leaning Capitol Hill, Central District, and the nearby has yet to be determined.

For now, with this recall vote and without a recount, Kshama Sawant remains.

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