Failed Backlash Candidate Turned Nepo Appointee Will Need to Work Harder to Catch Up to Challenger Alexis Mercedes Rinck by Hannah Krieg After an abysmal showing in the primary, council appointee Tanya Woo needed a W last night in the debate against her challenger for the citywide council seat, Alexis Mercedes Rinck. So she decided to reuse the playbook from the 2023 election and insist that her opponent sprang forth from the previous council’s ideological pool. Woo ultimately failed to prove that Rinck represented the second coming of Kshama Sawant, partly because she kept her accusations vague and partly because the current council may be even less popular than the last.  Throughout the debate, Woo tried to attack Rinck by accusing her of advocating for “all the failed policies in the last four years that have brought us to where we are today.” Rinck countered, saying that Woo characterized her in a way that she “definitely [had] not brought forward on the campaign.”  “Our campaign has been the one uniting our communities, not bringing in angry people to City Hall to public comment for hours at a time just to be unheard,” Rinck said, nodding to the council’s propensity for pissing off the public and then plugging their ears.  Rinck’s argument may be the winning one. According to a poll conducted by the Seattle Times and Suffolk University in June 2023, 34 percent of voters approved of 2023's city council, a body with five labor-backed members and a real life socialist. At the time, the Times read these low approval ratings as an indicator of a backlash election. It was a good call. Voters ended up picking a conservative for every single seat that was up for grabs–besides Woo’s. Now the council boasts eight business-backed members, with only a few of those also seeing support from labor. After the election, a May 2024 poll by Change Research showed that only 22 percent of Seattle voters approved of Council President Sara Nelson, who led the conservative wave into City Hall. Even fewer–about 21 percent—approved of Woo. More concretely, Woo scored 38.4 percent in the primary election, whereas Rinck earned 50.2 percent and will likely gain the 8 percent of voters who supported the other progressive challengers.   Woo may see more success with her line of attack if she brings up a specific “failed policy” that Rinck advocated for. Woo’s supporters seem to want her to paint Rinck as a police department “defunder,” messaging that polls poorly and that helped the n00bs on council defeat their progressive opponents. However, Rinck has never publicly advocated for defunding the police. When the moderators asked her to name departments or programs she would cut to address the looming $260 million budget deficit, she advocated for more progressive revenue. Meanwhile, Woo called for unspecified cuts, making her the actual “defund” candidate in the race.  Woo tried to firm up Rinck’s association with past failures by reminding the public that Rinck worked at the King County Regional Homelessness Authority (KCRHA), which she described as a “failed organization.” Woo accused Rinck of writing the authority’s five-year plan, and she criticized its $12 billion price tag.  Rinck said if Woo had actually read the five-year plan, then she would know that the $12 billion simply anticipated the tremendous cost of new housing. In a follow-up message to The Stranger, Rinck clarified that she was “lead development” on the plan but did not write it single-handedly.  Rinck could have defended the plan or distanced herself harder on stage, but ultimately calling Woo uninformed seems to tap into a popular sentiment among advocates, particularly in the housing sphere, as this debate came on the heels of Woo asking what social housing was in a public meeting and revealing her ignorance about her own alternative to the social housing tax initiative.  In a back-and-forth conversation about establishing new exclusion zones, Rinck did her best to debunk Woo’s claim to be the candidate who will “push” Seattle forward; Woo might think Rinck is stuck in 2020, but Woo’s stuck in 1980. Earlier this week, Woo and most of her council colleagues reinstated old anti-loitering laws that the council previously repealed for fear of racist, classist, and anti-queer enforcement. Additionally, the council re-implemented old banishment laws, drawing lines for Stay Out of Drug Area (SODA) and Stay Out of Area Prostitution (SOAP) zones where Republican City Attorney Ann Davison wanted them to.  In the debate, Woo defended her vote. She claimed the SODA zones will “remove” sellers, “allowing resources and for people to heal.” As for SOAP zones, Woo seemed to imply they would remove young people from abusive situations with pimps and johns so they can get the resources they need.  First of all, SODA zones cannot target sellers. Only the Seattle Municipal Court (SMC) can issue SODA orders, and selling drugs would be a felony case, which SMC judges do not handle. The law allows judges to tack on extra fines and sentencing time for anyone charged with or convicted of a drug crime. Second, as Rinck pointed out, “people don’t just disappear.” In a fantasy world where the police can enforce the SODA or SOAP, it will only push people to another block.  Rinck emphasized the point that neither policy comes with any additional “resources.” She’s right. In fact, both SODA and SOAP could hinder access to homelessness services, medical care, mutual aid, and the only spot in town that helps sex workers within the zones. SOAP may actually make it harder for women to leave their pimps. But ultimately, the candidate's performance at any one debate won’t move the needle 12 percentage points, so even if her performance did appeal to some voters out there, she’s got a lot more work to do to catch back up. Just saying.