Progressive People Power “Fights Fire with Fire” after Big Business Spent More Than a Million Dollars to Elect Conservatives by Hannah Krieg Big business bought the current city council, and progressives have decided to try to buy it back. A group of disgruntled campaign workers and failed candidates launched Progressive People Power (P3) PAC, an independent expenditure (IE) that plans to fundraise for the leftmost candidate that makes it out of the primary. They aim to even the playing field with conservative opponents, who often attract hundreds of thousands in donations from real estate tycoons, CEOs, and other wealthy waterfront homeowners. At their very first fundraiser on Tuesday night, P3 raised $17,400 from 43 donors, and King County Democrats Chair Carrie Barnes pledged to match the contributions, bringing the total for the night up to nearly $35,000. For now, they say the money will go to electing Alexis Mercedes Rinck to the citywide council seat to replace the council’s nepotistic appointee, Tanya Woo. But over the next few cycles, they intend to “fight fire with fire” and buy a new city council that will reject the current council’s corporatist agenda that’s threatened minimum wage laws, resurrected racist tough-on-crime policies, sacrificed social programs to avoid taxing their wealthy donors, and stifled dissent at every turn. The Art of Buying an Election IEs wield a lot of power in Seattle elections, particularly because the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission limits the amount of money that individuals can give directly to campaigns and how much a campaign can fundraise at all. Historically, two powers—big business and organized labor—launch IEs to fundraise and campaign for candidates who will represent their interests.  After a bloody and expensive battle for the council between IEs in 2019, both interests relaxed, but labor checked out almost entirely. In 2023, big business spent more than five times as much on their conservative candidates as labor spent on their preferred candidates. And, in the cases of the Districts 3 and 5, both labor and big business gave money to the more conservative candidates: Council Member Joy Hollingsworth, the architect of the failed tip-punishing law; and Council Member Cathy Moore, who brought back loitering laws.  Between their campaigns and IEs, in 2023 conservative candidates spent on average $22.44 per vote, whereas progressives spent $13.75 per vote, according to an analysis from The Stranger. P3 board member Maren Costa ran for the District 1 seat on the city council in 2023. She advocated for progressive revenue, strong environmental policies, and workers rights. Costa easily scooped up endorsements from every major progressive board and sailed through the primary with a first-place showing, garnering 33 percent of the vote share. All of her competitors endorsed her over her opponent in the general election, big tech lawyer Rob Saka, despite aligning more with him ideologically.  But Saka had a secret weapon: The backing of wealthy donors. Elliot Bay Neighbors, an IE funded primarily by the real estate industry, spent more than $470,000 on campaign materials in support of Saka. Despite Costa’s strong labor background and worker-friendly platform, unions only spent about $84,000 on her council bid. With about five times more funding, Costa says Elliot Bay Neighbors “carpet-bombed” West Seattle with mailers that misinformed voters on her platform and stoked fear.  Saka won the general election with 54 percent of the vote. “Last November, I left the campaign trail angry,” said Kyler Parris, Costa’s former campaign manager and a current P3 board member, at the fundraiser Tuesday. “Why was I angry? Because I watched progressives across the city lose because our hundreds of boots on the ground could not defeat a dozen corporate crony conservatives.”  Losers, Unite! Parris is not alone in his anger. Candidates squashed by big business IEs in 2023 showed up to the fundraiser Tuesday to support the new IE, including Alex Hudson, who ran against Hollingsworth; Ron Davis, who ran against Council Member Maritza Rivera; former City Council Member Andrew Lewis, who was ousted by Council Member Bob Kettle; and Nilu Jenks, who came in third in the primary for District 5.  Davis says the progressives were “really organized” in 2023 when it came to door-knocking, fundraising within their own campaigns, and general people power. But P3 feels like the “missing piece” that could have won their races. His opponent, Rivera, enjoyed a remarkable 14 times more outside funding than Davis. Still, Rivera only beat him by 235 votes. “I’m gonna make sure that doesn’t happen to another candidate ever again,” Davis tells The Stranger after pledging a donation to P3.  P3 Board Chair Ry Armstrong, who lost the District 3 race in the primary in 2023, doesn’t think it’ll cost that much to disrupt the dynamic. Armstrong says that progressives promote better, more popular policies and organize stronger ground game, so they won’t have to match every dollar corporate PACs spend. Though, Armstrong adds, P3 sure will try!  Lewis, who lost by a couple hundred votes last election, speculates that just $100,000 from an IE could have been the difference between a council with him and Davis and a council with Kettle and Rivera. He says that such a hypothetical body would have legislated differently. For example, Lewis repealed laws against loitering in 2020 because they disproportionately punish people of color, queer people, and poor people. Moore just successfully reinstated those laws. Lewis passed a minimum wage for gig delivery workers, though he did water it down. Council President Sara Nelson launched a crusade to repeal that wage, though she wasn’t successful, as Lewis notes. Purity Test But if P3 just gives their support to anyone marginally to the left of their opponent, then candidates may not face consequences for voting out of line with progressive values. For example, Lewis partly owes his 2019 victory to UNITE HERE! Local 8, which spent almost $900,000 on his race. But when he “disappointed” the union in office, they didn’t spend a dime on his re-election campaign. This strategy saves the union money and hopefully teaches future candidates a lesson about loyalty. On the other side, while P3 intends to support the leftmost candidate, voters have seen IEs leave lefty candidates out to dry in the general election. For example, labor rallied around Moore instead of her leftward competitor, ChrisTiana ObeySumner, in 2023. Similarly, in 2019, progressive IEs spent hundreds of thousands on white candidates—Council Members Lewis, Dan Strauss, and Lisa Herbold—and much less on people of color who ran further left—Shaun Scott and Kshama Sawant.  It’s unclear where P3 will draw the line in future elections. “We are welcoming everyone,” says P3 board member Alexis Mansanarez. “We are open to all feedback, all points of view, all people–” “—Not all points of view, not all people,” board member Aretha Basu interrupted. “...on the progressive spectrum,” Mansanarez amended. Armstrong anticipates “hard decisions in the future.” They say the board–which currently includes Armstrong, Costa, Parris, Basu, Mansanarez, failed District 3 candidate Efrain Hudnell, and community activist Aleksa Manila—will vote while considering input from community partners on how P3 spends the money.  In regards to Lewis and Moore specifically, Armstrong offers a quote from Maya Angelou: "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."  “There has to be room for education and growth, but we are tired of people playing presentational politics with people's lives,” Armstrong says. “It's time for progressive to mean something again in Seattle, and we hope to start that conversation collaboratively.” Costa argues that the existence of P3 would encourage candidates to voice bolder ideas. Big business’ outsized influence can put some more hand-wringing candidates in a position to capitulate to power. Everyone’s afraid of an out-of-context quote making them out to be a Marxist on a mailer. The threat of how corporate IEs portrayed abolitionist candidates such as Nikkita Oliver and Nicole Thomas Kennedy in the 2021 elections chilled the conversation on reallocating police funding. Without equally powerful IEs, voters see much less counter-messaging. If voters get equal information about candidates, Costa believes most Seattleites will swing in favor of taxing the wealthy, standing up for workers, protecting renters, and striving for a cleaner earth.  The Task at Hand As for this year’s progressive, it's unclear how much IE spending Rinck will need to pull off a victory. She won more than 50 percent of the vote in the primary, and she will likely pick up the 8 percent of voters who supported the other lefty challengers in the race, Saunatina Sanchez and Tariq Yusuf. And those results came after the Washington Realtors PAC spent $60,000 on ads for Woo.  So far, the usual suspects who drummed up PACs for the mayor, the city attorney, and most of the current council have not launched a campaign around Woo this cycle. Last year, Friends of SE Seattle spent $168,000 to support Woo only for Council Member Tammy Morales to beat her anyway. Woo’s campaign and IE combined paid $28.86 per vote, whereas Morales and her IE paid $11.44.  There’s still time for those donors to get involved—Friends of SE Seattle did not register until Sept 27 of last year, and they did not drop any mailers until mid-October.  But even if Rinck doesn’t end up needing backup to fight corporate influence in her race, the win would help P3 establish itself for next time.  And there will be a next time, as big business feels entitled to City Hall. When Woo lost her race, corporate PAC wrangler Tim Ceis told his email list of donors to pressure the council to appoint Woo to the vacant citywide council seat she now occupies. Ceis wrote that their successful outside spending “earned [them] the right to let the Council know not to offer the left a consolation prize of this Council seat.” The council listened to Ceis and the donors. If P3 can pull off a successful outside spending campaign, then maybe they will “earn” some sway themselves. God knows showing up to council chambers to deliver public comment ain’t working.