“It’s never been more important to have a movement mayor,” Wilson said during Sunday’s rally.
Speakers laid out stark differences between Seattle’s two mayoral candidates at a campaign rally for Seattle Mayoral candidate Katie Wilson on Sunday. Many made the case that the contrast extends to fundamental political instincts and approach: Wilson is a bottom-up coalition-builder and a movement mayor, but incumbent Mayor Bruce Harrell represents the top-down old guard more interested in protecting those who already have power, they argued.
A crowd of more than 100 people at Washington Hall in the Central District cheered on fiery speeches from a slate of prominent Wilson endorsers and the candidate herself. The campaign urged attendees to turn their ballots at drop boxes as soon as possible and urge their friends and family to do the same, ahead of the close of the general election voting period on Tuesday, November 4.
State Senator Rebecca Saldaña (D-Seattle, 37th Legislative District) said Katie Wilson’s opponents have often underestimated her to their detriment.
“I can tell you my experience over the last 16 years of knowing her is that she constantly is underestimated, but because she knows how to organize, because she knows how to build coalitions, because she knows how to really understand power, and then be able to organize a plan around how to shift that power towards our vision that she is ready to be the mayor.”
The Urbanist elections committee (of which I am one of 14 members) agreed with that assessment and endorsed Wilson ahead of her dominant primary performance in which she won a nearly 10-point victory over a well-funded incumbent, who many pundits were framing as inevitable and nearly invulnerable.
Other stories shared Sunday touched on Harrell’s failure to chart a vision, build coalitions, or turn on his trademark charm when the cameras weren’t rolling. State Senator Yasmin Trudeau, who represents Tacoma’s 27th Legislative District, said Harrell had ignored her despite her role chairing the Senate’s capital budget, a great resource for affordable housing and infrastructure investments across the state.
“Let me tell you, the current mayor has never even introduced himself to me,” Trudeau said. “I’ve sat in the room with that man, and at tables with that man. I have funded projects that you all will see and continue to see across this city, as he claims affordable housing as a number one priority. He has never talked to the Chair of the Senate capital budget. I have never heard what his housing vision is, what his plans actually are, but I have seen Katie move him to double the units in at least one project.”
Trudeau noted Wilson has earned her endorsement because she works hard to build broad coalitions and to strive toward an ambitious shared vision. That coalition-oriented public service approach stands it contrast to the mayor’s approach, which she portrayed as entitled and transactional.
“Are you ready to elect someone who works behind the scenes for many thankless wins, working hard to get things done, and will not just show up for the ribbon cuttings. Are you ready?” Trudeau said to applause from the rally crowd. “Are you ready to elect someone who doesn’t think a public service position like the mayor is owed to anyone, but rather must be earned with diligence, trust and respect. Are you ready?”
The highest ranking official at the rally was Congressman Jamaal Bowman (D-New York City, 16th Congressional District). He drew comparisons between Wilson’s run and that of New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, who also appears poised to upset an entrenched establishment figure and shift city politics in a progressive direction. Members of Congress closer to home, including Adam Smith and Marilyn Strickland have endorsed Harrell, with Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, issuing a dual endorsement late in the race after initially backing Harrell.
“That is why I’m here,” Bowman said. “That is why I flew all the way from New York City, because if I can help a tiny bit, I’m going to help. I’m going to do whatever I can. But I’m also here because I’m excited about Katie’s leadership and the kind of person she is. I’m excited about that, and I’m excited to build a local grassroots progressive movement in every city, county, state.”
NYC Congressman Jamaal Bowman is in Seattle stumping for Katie Wilson @wilsonforseattle.bsky.social He gave a fiery speech arguing Wilson represented hope and the future of the Democratic Party.
— The Urbanist (@theurbanist.org) October 26, 2025 at 3:17 PM
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In Bowman’s eyes, that progressive movement is essential to beat back the march of oligarchy-backed fascism.
“We have a fascist racist in the White House. We have a Washington that is dysfunctional, however, however, this has been their plan for a very long time,” Bowman said. “This is not something that happened overnight. The corporate takeover of our democracy has been in play for years. From the Cato Foundation to a far right agenda and movement. They’ve been working to build this fascist oligarchy for decades, and now it’s here. They are the darkness; Seattle and Katie is the light.”
Progressives are looking to ascending leaders like Wilson and Mamdani to galvanize resistance to illegal Trump Administration policies and attacks on working people and civil rights — and to inspire hope that progressive victories are within reach.
“Now the entire country is awake, and we know the game they’re trying to play,” Bowman added. “And we usually say it’s the people versus the power, but they only got money. They don’t have power. The people are the power. We, the people, are the power. And as we organize and win a historic election in New York and Seattle, we are going to save this country from itself. […] We, the people organized together, are going to ensure that this country reaches its full potential and becomes a real liberal democracy.”
Wilson speech highlighted many differences between herself and the incumbent. It started with her inspiration to jump into the race: a social housing vote in a February special election. Grassroots social housing advocates scored a big victory with a decisive ballot measure win, unlocking funding for their effort, despite the mayor being the face of a well-funded opposition campaign.
“Harrell has repeatedly undermined our new social housing developer, and he teamed up with Amazon, Microsoft and the Chamber of Commerce,” Wilson said. “We need a mayor will fight to make social housing work, because stable housing should be a human right, not a commodity.”
Beyond the sharp differences on housing policy, Wilson noted the campaign also laid bare how the mayor was out of touch with most voters. Her campaign has been laser-focused on big solutions to cost-of-living issues hitting many Seattle residents hard, but she characterized the mayor’s efforts as “performative.”
“So that’s one answer [of why we’re different], but sometimes instead, I talk about what the results of that special election, what that landslide vote for social housing, despite the mayor’s face on all those mailers, taught me about the moment that we are in,” Wilson said. “Because rent, childcare, food, everything costs so damn much, and our mayor is simply out of touch with the reality that so many working people and families in our city are experiencing right now. People are hungry for real action on affordability, and instead, what they’re seeing out of City Hall is, for lack of a better phrase, performative centrism.”
Katie Wilson said she and Mayor Harrell see power differently. He has dismissed her accomplishments as an organizer, but she argued real power for change is bottom up, not top down.
— The Urbanist (@theurbanist.org) October 26, 2025 at 3:23 PM
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On the campaign trail, Harrell has attempted to hit Wilson as inexperienced and for taking credit for initiatives that elected officials until voted into law. She bristled at that, and spun the criticism back on the mayor.
“I know all of this in my bones, because I have been part of these movements that pushed career politicians like our mayor to pass legislation that they otherwise would not have touched with a 10-foot pole,” Wilson said. “And that’s why I spent my career in the trenches, organizing alongside ordinary people and building grassroots coalitions, because I know that that is where the real power lies.”
Wilson said her campaign has scared business leaders into spend record sums on this election, and it’s not just because she is the candidate more bought into the project of taxing the rich to improve outcomes for working people. She argued it was her transformational politics that really frightened them, being a mayor of the people and broader social movement, rather than simply a dealmaker with the same big institutional players that have always gripped power.
“They are afraid of a mayor who does not accept that the table is already set by the institutional players who have the power, who have always had the power,” Wilson said. “They are afraid of a mayor who knows what becomes possible when the people get organized. And you know what? People are getting organized. People are getting organized here in Seattle and in New York City and in communities around the country where we are tired of business as usual, and we are ready for a new kind of politics.”
In a time of crisis, Wilson argued the old way of doing politics does not work so well.
“It’s never been more important to have a movement mayor, because the challenges that we are facing and the challenges that we will face in the coming years are not things that politicians, even the best politicians you could wish for, can simply hand down solutions to,” Wilson said.
The shadow of the Trump Administration looms large over this race. Attacks on immigrants, poor people, and fundamental democratic rights will likely require countermeasures that the old set of Democratic Party leaders have traditionally considered extreme or beyond the scope of their imagination.
In arguing it was time for a movement mayor, Wilson pointed to the threats at the door.
“When ICE descends on our city, it is up to all of us to protect our immigrants and refugees,” Wilson said. “When the Trump administration cuts off food and health benefits, it is up to all of us to reach out and make sure that the most vulnerable people in our communities are not falling through the cracks. When Trump tries to dismantle our democracy, we all need to take to the streets,” Wilson said. “The slogan of this campaign is this is your city. That means that you have a right to be here and to live a dignified life, whatever your background and whatever your income. It also means that we all have a collective responsibility for this city and for each other.”
While Harrell has ramped up anti-Trump rhetoric recently as campaign season heated up, he began Trump’s second term by preaching the tact of appeasement and collaborating where possible. “I’m not going to D.C. with my fist balled,” Harrell said in February, as he complimented Trump’s tech billionaire inner circle as “smart innovators.”
The other attack Harrell has recently trotted out in hopes of clawing back into the race is that Wilson is supposedly a phony because she has accepted help from her parents to cover child care costs for her two-year-old daughter.
“For the entirety of this campaign, Katie Wilson has sold herself to voters as a working class person struggling to get by – but, at the eleventh hour, it took just one hard question from a journalist to reveal the truth: Katie Wilson has never had to struggle because her parents are still paying her bills at age 43,” said an unnamed spokesperson for the Harrell campaign. “We cannot risk handing over the reins of the city to someone who has never managed an employee, doesn’t track her personal finances or those of her one-person non-profit, and who lives off their parents’ paychecks. Bruce knows what it means to work hard for opportunity. He and his family have lived the challenges that Katie Wilson claims to understand, but has yet to experience.”
In the aftermath of that personal attack, Wilson allies have pointed out that raising a family in Seattle has become an incredibly expensive undertaking. Child care costs have risen much faster than inflation and family-sized housing costs are sky-high in a market saturated with one-bedroom apartments. The cost or raising kids a generation ago, when Harrell raised his family, is not the same as it is today.
Port of Seattle Commissioner Toshiko Hasegawa served as the master of ceremonies on Sunday and she alluded to that line of attack when she noted her parents helped mightily in raising her own young family.
“I am so proud to say that I am now raising my two children in that same house, in our home in Beacon Hill, because of the help and support of my parents,” Hasegawa said. “We were able to set down roots so that the next generation may flourish.”
Families and communities banding together to lift each other up and overcome hardship is something people should be proud of, Hasegawa argued.
“And now I’m the mom, I have two wonderful little kids, ages four and one, and I’ll tell you, they guide every decision I make in life and as an elected official, and that’s something that candidate Wilson and I have in common,” Hasegawa said. “I want a mayor who understands what it takes to raise a family in this city. I want a mayor who understands it requires bold policy action to achieve affordability for every family, all the people in this city.”
Doug Trumm is publisher of The Urbanist. An Urbanist writer since 2015, he dreams of pedestrian streets, bus lanes, and a mass-timber building spree to end our housing crisis. He graduated from the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington in 2019. He lives in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood and loves to explore the city by foot and by bike.
