Washington state megathread

[GeneralMacArthur]

They actually did polling, through Change Research, for all four citywide races:

Mayor
Harrell 48%
Gonzalez 32%
Not Sure 18%
Won't Vote 2%

City Attorney
Davison 43%
Thomas-Kennedy 24%
Not Sure 30%
Won't Vote 2%

City Council Seat 9
Nelson 41%
Oliver 37%
Not Sure 21%
Won't Vote 2%

City Council Seat 8
Mosqueda 39%
Wilson 31%
Not Sure 26%
Won't Vote 2%

The polls are very good news but I'm skeptical that they're legit.  The leftist candidates always close ground in the final days, especially once all the late ballots start shifting the results.  Last year we had really nice results on election night, and then all the races shifted 5-10 points to the left over the following week, resulting in a disastrous near-sweep of the council by extremists.

[GeneralMacArthur]

If WA GOP wants to win the governor's seat they need the Democrats to nominate some frothing lunatic like NTK.  But the statewide Democratic Party would never do something so damn suicidal.  It's just Seattle that has these insane politics.  It's not like Seattle Dems are behind NTK either -- the LD organizations making these endorsements are dominated by just the same extremist activists as every other organization in this city and don't actually represent local Dems at all.

[GeneralMacArthur]

If WA GOP wants to win the governor's seat they need the Democrats to nominate some frothing lunatic like NTK.  But the statewide Democratic Party would never do something so damn suicidal.  It's just Seattle that has these insane politics.  It's not like Seattle Dems are behind NTK either -- the LD organizations making these endorsements are dominated by just the same extremist activists as every other organization in this city and don't actually represent local Dems at all.

Hate to burst your bubble, but this is the chair of the WA Democratic Party:
https://twitter.com/Tinapo/status/1451198703297974288

Or claiming that Davison is an "MTG wannabe":
https://twitter.com/Tinapo/status/1448693640339988489

Oh I know.  Tina is awful.  But that doesn't really contradict what I said.  The state organization is dominated by Seattle loons.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Wyman will take position in DHS, will be out as SoS.

Damn, that's a loss for us.  She's the only Republican I've ever voted for.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Voted yesterday. I'll make a few predictions (not going to predict every race, obviously):

Mayor: Harrell 60-40
City Attorney: Davison 56-44
City Council Position 8: Mosqueda 57-43
City Council Position 9: Nelson 52-48

If this actually happens catch me staggering down Pike Street on a Tuesday night drunkenly singing Clap aloooong if you feel like happiness is the truth

[GeneralMacArthur]

Davison as the R nominee for Governor could potentially be an interesting choice, but she would certainly not make it through the primary unless the R vote was quite fractured. I don't think she really excites anyone on her own except as a foil to NTK, so I'm quite skeptical she could actually pull it off.

If Davison wins this race then she's probably just gonna sit on the city attorney's post for as long as she can.  It may be another banner race in 2026, but simply keeping the office functional and responsible like a normal city attorney's office, instead of the ideology-driven farce it became under Holmes, is her way outperforming on her own apparent motivation for entering local politics, which was  to stop the rising crime around the city (but particularly in North Seattle where she lives).

[GeneralMacArthur]

Xing how close would you place yourself to the median voter in Seattle ?

Hard to say, maybe I’m somewhat close to the median? There are definitely voters to my right here, especially on economic issues, but there are also a fair amount of very far left-wing people here (though it does sort of depend on how left and right are defined), and I’m sort of in this no man’s land between the more moderate Democrats and the hardcore socialists. Gun to my head, the median voter is a hair to my right on economic issues and a hair to my left on social issues.

Yeah I figured you would be pretty close to the median. Should be a decent sign for Davison but you are definitely super high info .

Xing, as our Seattle median voter, what's your take on the Sawant Recall?  Do you support it (I believe you said once you live in D3)?

I am part of the operation and have access to internal polling so I will tell you whether you are accurate directionally.  Not authorized to share the actual numbers.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Would love to know, too. I could see it going either way, but my gut instinct says that recalls are hard, and I don't know that Sawant has done enough to directly, negatively impact people's lives in District 3 for the recall to be successful. Would love to be wrong, though.

I've talked to dozens if not hundreds of people about this race and here is the general sense I get:

A) Most people are vaguely aware that Sawant has done a lot of shady, illegal stuff.  Even if it's not specifically the things she's being recalled for (which are bad enough on their own), the impression has been built up over years of, for instance, taxpayers being forced to spend millions defending her in court.

B) Although people dislike Sawant personally, they do like her policies (or at least, what they perceive as her policies) and feel like she is useful for "pulling the council to the left" or "being a loud voice for moving this city to the left."

C) That said, most of the people I talk to had at least a weak impression that she's ineffective at actually getting things passed and doesn't accomplish anything on the city council.

D) People don't really buy the argument that the recall is a bunch of right-wing racist Republicans.  In general this seems more like a GOTV thing that is preaching to the choir and not an attempt at persuasion from Sawant.

E) The technical details of the recall effort are too confusing for anyone to understand and they think both sides are pulling shenanigans.  Nobody really wants to follow any of this or care about any of this, they just want to vote.


Put it all together and my argument is always: "We can replace Sawant with someone who believes the exact same things, but doesn't do all the illegal, horrible stuff.  We deserve someone who's not just going to be a loud voice but will actually be able to work with other people and deliver these things.  Sawant works better as an activist who pressures people to do things, not as someone who actually has to build coalitions and pass legislation."

The recall campaign isn't running on this playbook though.  They are hyper-focused on precise, data-driven GOTV efforts.

My theory of this race has remained unchanged for several months:  Sawant's strongest skill is being able to gin up anger and hatred.  A direct referendum on her, rather than a contest against an opponent she can ruthlessly demonize, is her worst nightmare.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Anyone know what time we can expect the initial returns tonight?  The race will take over a week to truly be done but if Harrell or Davison has like a +25 margin on election night it should be safe to call.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Harrell +38K
Nelson +27K
Davison +22K

This is with 130K reporting.  The 2019 elections had about 250K turnout.

So I'm certainly not popping the champagne... there are still 120K late returns left that will result in dramatic swings towards the crazy candidates.

That said I think Harrell is pretty safe.

[GeneralMacArthur]

The most embarrassing part of the night for Dems is that a Republican likely just won a race in Seattle.

It's extremely embarrassing for the WA Dems that any of them endorsed NTK in the first place, much less Shasti Conrad (KC Dems chair) being on her payroll.

NTK is not a Democrat.  She did not vote for Joe Biden.  Her campaign manager said she hoped Biden dies and praised Trump for being more lucid and intelligent than Biden.  There is no excuse for Democrats to be endorsing this awful candidate.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Right, Harrell is an establishment Dem and ran a standard Dem campaign and it's looking like a landslide victory over the pathetic fraud Gonzalez.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Sawant participated in a "debate" with Henry Bridger II, the manager of the recall.  You can watch it on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU2di6MI4hM&feature=emb_imp_woyt

I put "debate" in quotes because Sawant runs roughshod over both Henry and the moderator, filibustering and gish galloping along for almost 80% of the debate and refusing to shut the f--- up.  Very reminiscent of Trump's first debate with Biden.

Even if you knew nothing about the issues in this race or what they're debating... can't you just tell who's the hero and who's the villain by which candidate is being aggressive, uncivil, and relentlessly launching personal attacks?

[GeneralMacArthur]

Sawant participated in a "debate" with Henry Bridger II, the manager of the recall.  You can watch it on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU2di6MI4hM&feature=emb_imp_woyt

I put "debate" in quotes because Sawant runs roughshod over both Henry and the moderator, filibustering and gish galloping along for almost 80% of the debate and refusing to shut the f--- up.  Very reminiscent of Trump's first debate with Biden.

Even if you knew nothing about the issues in this race or what they're debating... can't you just tell who's the hero and who's the villain by which candidate is being aggressive, uncivil, and relentlessly launching personal attacks?

Dear god, we’re back to the “civility” meme of the late-2010s.

Being an absolute garbage person may have ended up being an asset for Trump but that doesn't mean it's an asset for all politicians.  Since I actually live about five minutes from her house and you live thousands of miles away, please listen to me when I tell you that most of the people in this district do not find Kshama Sawant's antics appealing.  They vote for her in spite of her being 100% trash.  The only people who like her despicable personality and behavior are SocAlt cultists, who constitute less than 1% of the district.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Ballots for the recall are out, I've already returned my YES vote.

I was surprised to see that Sawant is allowed almost the entire ballot space to write her response to the recall, right above the bubble that voters fill in.





Her response contains numerous falsehoods.  For instance, she says the recall is "bankrolled" by "500+ Republicans", but there's absolutely no way she could know this since party registration is private and not reported on donations -- not to mention that 500 people is only 10% of the recall's donor base, so even if this were true, the use of the term "bankrolled" is very dishonest.  Sawant also doesn't donate her $140,000 salary to "social justice movements" -- she donates it to Socialist Alternative, which is herself, and her husband.  That's like if Bezos said he was "donating" his Amazon salary to Blue Origin and expected to be praised for it.

It's pretty shocking to me that she's allowed to write something this false right on the ballot, especially because the Recall language at the top had to be carefully crafted to satisfy various legal requirements and endured several court challenges regarding its truthfulness.

[GeneralMacArthur]

As a side note, the case made by Sawant and her media allies regarding the charges themselves is very inconsistent and muddled.

The second sentence in her response is "the courts haven't found her guilty of anything."  However, she herself already admitted to guilt on charge 1.  And in the second-to-last paragraph, she says "it's no crime to stand with BLM as Sawant did at the peaceful city hall rally", so she's admitting to guilt on charge 2 as well (yes, it was a crime).  So is she saying she's not guilty?  Or is she saying she is guilty, but shouldn't be recalled until the courts agree that she's guilty?

Sawant has also said repeatedly, including in the debate, that the charges are "completely false."  So which is it?  Like with so many Sawant things, it just feels like debating Trump supporters.  "Trump never did any of those things you're accusing him of, but also it's a good thing that he did them."  There's no integrity here, it's just making multiple layers of backup arguments simultaneously.

On charge 3 Sawant has gone to absurd and unbelievable lengths to try and demonstrate how false it is.  First she tried to claim that she didn't give out Durkan's address -- tough to believe, but impossible to prove, which is why this is a recall and not a criminal trial.  She could've just stopped there.  But then she tried to claim that the march was BLM-organized and she had nothing to do with it, which is absurd on its face, since she was the featured speaker at the march and the march was packed full of her Socialist Alternative people -- it was clearly a Socialist Alternative march where they used the more popular BLM banner.  Then she went even further and tried to claim that she had no idea what Jenny Durkan's address was and that she didn't even know they were close to Durkan's home.  This is just such an obvious lie.  You really think she was just a babe in the woods being carried along in this march where nobody mentioned they were going to the mayor's house?  On top of that, her speech was basically "hey Jenny Durkan, screw you, come out and fight me" so obviously she knew she was at the mayor's house.

The Stranger wrote an article endorsing her, where they start off by saying all the charges are false, but then later on go through the charges and admit that 1+2 are true (they repeat the Sawant talking points on 3) but say "we don't care if she's guilty, because we like her, so suck it."  Oops, sorry, the correct answer was "the courts have not found her guilty of anything."

[GeneralMacArthur]

Socialist Alternative is not “her and her husband”. Sawant is not to my knowledge on the council that leads her party. The party does not even have an executive office.

More lies and lies from GMac. Taking the Trump playbook of repeating everything till you Hope it becomes believable.

Sawant's current husband is an employee of Socialist Alternative and takes home tens of thousands of dollars a year in pay.  He is currently receiving a paycheck for his work on the Sawant campaign.  If Sawant gives SocAlt $25,000 and then SocAlt gives her husband $25,000 then yes she is paying herself.

But it's a silly point anyway because it's not like Socialist Alternative is some charity.  It's an organization that exists almost entirely to support Sawant.  It is her entire life and livelihood.  It is her sole interest and the entirety of her social group.  All that money she "donates" to Socialist Alternative gets spent promoting her image and helping her maintain political power.  Not to mention that a lot of the money she "donates" is actually mandatory tithing because Socialist Alternative is a weird f---ing cult and you get kicked out if you don't give them oodles of cash.

Her "donating" her salary to Socialist Alternative is basically the same thing as Michael Bloomberg "donating" $100MM to his own presidential campaign.  If Bloomberg had tried to claim that he was donating to "social justice causes" by labeling his own campaign as a "social justice cause" he would have been laughed out of the room.  But because it's your communist queen pulling this stunt, you have to defend her, even though deep down you know it sounds dumb af.

If maintaining her office is so important to her that she decides to spend her own money out-of-pocket to pay teenagers to stand around in red shirts waving signs and harassing people who walk by all day, that's her right, be my guest.  I wouldn't have a problem with it.  But she never misses an opportunity to be dishonest.  So instead she labels that as "donating my salary to social justice causes" and expects to be applauded for it.  It's just one of 100,000 different things Sawant does that's sleazy and obnoxious and I'm so sick of it all.

[GeneralMacArthur]

So you are moving the goalpost and saying that they aren’t apart of SAlts leadership

How am I moving the goalposts?  I said that "donating to Socialist Alternative is just donating to herself."  Both she and her husband profit substantially from Socialist Alternative activities.  Sawant is clearly the #1 beneficiary of all SocAlt spending.  Her husband literally draws his paycheck from her "donations."

I’m almost sure that’s not all that they do. I’m pretty sure they have chapters in several states that run candidates, support unions through solidarity campaigns and financing of strike funds, and anti-war and anti-fascist protests. Then there’s the electoral work the DSA and Democrats assign them to though.

What % of Socialist Alternative's campaign funds goes towards these hopeless no-name candidates, and what % goes towards keeping Sawant in power in D3?  The only other place they've even come relatively close is the Minneapolis City Council, and it's been 4 years since they tried there.  Their website doesn't mention any other political campaigns or candidates other than Sawant.

I've never seen any evidence of them "financing strike funds" or doing anything for unions, anti-war, anti-fash, etc. other than marching and raising signs (which are really just a means to try and recruit for the cult).  If they do these kinds of things, they don't talk about it at all.  My neighborhood is absolutely blanketed with Socialist Alternative media, and it's 100% promoting Sawant and her issues or attacking her many enemies.

The work of SAlt in just Washington brought along a minimum wage increase

Dear God am I so f---ing tired of this myth.  Kshama Sawant and Socialist Alternative didn't do a damn thing for the $15 minimum wage.  Go look up the Wikipedia article for the Seattle $15 wage and you'll find zero mentions of Kshama Sawant or Socialist Alternative.  All they did was show up at the very end of the movement to have a few Socialist Alternative events where they waved "Fight for $15" banners, and then Sawant took credit for the entire thing, and for some reason people decided to believe her.

work towards affordable housing and actually solving the homeless crisis— and have given the nonwhite, small business, and working population in Seattle a real voice and representative in city hall

She literally hasn't done any of this.  She's not anybody's representative.  It's impossible to speak to her or get her to care about local issues.  You call Sawant's office and you're redirected to a Socialist Alternative propagandist who tries to tell you your local issues don't matter and what really matters are the broad, global political issues she's allegedly fighting for.  The only thing she ever does for the district is seek out disgruntled tenants so she can hold events targeting their landlords for harassment and vandalism and then take credit for any good thing the landlord does.  Whenever there's public comment at city hall she packs the room with her own supporters so she's literally preventing anyone else from having a voice.  And don't get me started on how much mutual hostility and hatred there is between her and 95% of small businesses in D3 (really everyone except Squirrel Chops).

It continues to astound me how much you enjoy lecturing me about all the good Sawant has done for my neighborhood and how much we all love her.  I live here.  It's a very small district.  You can walk from one side of it to the other in half an hour.  I can probably list every single small business in D3.  But please do continue sitting up there in Illinois telling me all about how wrong my lived experience is and what a clueless idiot I am about my own district and my own representative.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Man it's so clear that you don't know anything about D3.  Please tell me, which immigrant groups feel that Sawant is their champion?  Which small businesses support her?  Which community organizations support her?

You see, you won't actually be able to find any.  Real community organizations, like the Capitol Hill Community Fund or GenPride, have never been on Sawant's side.  The only "community organizations" on her side are left-wing political organizations like MLK Labor or KC Equity Now, which call themselves the voice of the community, but clearly aren't.  These organizations also endorsed NTK, Oliver, and Gonzalez, who lost in a landslide.

Also you continue to post malarkey about $15.  You claim Socialist Alternative "finally did it in" with their canvassing campaign.  But your own link states that this campaign took place after Sawant was elected -- which would have been the same time that the city elected Ed Murray, who made the $15 minimum wage the centerpiece of his mayoral campaign.  The election of Murray meant that $15 was already a done deal by the time your "massive canvassing campaign" started.  As someone who actually lived here at the time and saw all this play out in real time, I can tell you for a fact that Socialist Alternative wasn't accomplishing anything with their campaign other than grabbing attention for themselves, stealing credit for the win and using it as a recruitment opportunity.

[GeneralMacArthur]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Nu5A3_CdhifdkMix4Lx0TpaYA-poSMIF/view

Joint Statement from the Jewish, Black, and Asian Communities

“Justice, justice you shall pursue”
Deuteronomy 16:20

Religious and community leaders from across Seattle today joined together in support of the Recall Sawant campaign, issuing the following statement:

Today, we want to make something emphatically clear: Councilmember Kshama Sawant does not speak for us, nor our communities. Only we can do that, and only we should do that.

In making this statement, we encourage District 3 voters to support the Recall of Councilmember Kshama Sawant.

We have not come to this recommendation lightly. We practice and teach acceptance and forgiveness. But District 3 voters ought to be aware of Sawant’s long history of attacking our communities and hi-jacking our efforts.

Sawant regularly trades in rhetoric that gives rise to antisemitism, resulting in violence and hatred directed at the Jewish community. She has also stoked chaos in the black community and sought to hijack the efforts of Black Lives Matter organizers to promote her own political agenda. These behaviors have been well documented by news coverage and amount to a record that we simply cannot condone or support.

Kshama Sawant has consistently sought to exploit and politicize the painful circumstances of our communities for her own personal gain. These craven behaviors do nothing more than to further divide us as people and contribute to the incitement and spreading of hate.

The Seattle Asian community has repeatedly attempted to bring concerns to Councilmember Sawant regarding the loss of vibrancy in the International District resulting from the cities lax attitude toward crime in the district.

Sawant refuses to advocate for the Asian community because she falsely equates crime with poverty and exploits our problems for political gain. Small businesses are still recovering from damage sustained during riots where so many businesses experienced violent property damage and looting – much of which she encouraged.

Sawant appropriates the cultural identity of the Asian community for political gain and gamesmanship – but turns her back on the community’s needs. That is why we support the recall of Kshama Sawant.

Our communities support the recall of Kshama Sawant because she admitted to guilt in using city resources to support a ballot initiative and failed to comply with public disclosure requirement related to this support; she disobeyed state orders related to Covid 19 by admitting hundreds of people into City Hall on June 9th of 2020 when it was closed, endangering public workers; and, she led a protest to Mayor Jenny Durkan’s, the location which Sawant knows is protected under state confidentiality laws.

As the Seattle Times recently said in their endorsement of the Recall – “Voters should hold Sawant accountable for transgressions against civil governance and remove her from office”.

These are not characteristics of those who should be trusted to lead our people, and why we cannot support Sawant remaining in office.

Signed by a very long list of about 100 local faith+community leaders.

This probably goes against some narrative or something.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Only one week to go until the Sawant Recall election.

One the ground here in D3, the Sawant people have been out in force all over the Capitol Hill core.  My Recall Sawant yard sign has been stolen, I put up another one, it got stolen again, I put up another one, it got stolen again, so now I'm on my 4th one, and I bet by the time I finish writing this, it will have been stolen.  Of course none of this is too surprising since I'm likely the only person in my precinct who will be voting to recall.  All the flyers I've received, however, have been from the Recall campaign.  I've also heard they put up TV ads, although since I don't watch TV I haven't seen them.

Although Sawant has spent the last six months crying about "voter suppression" due to its being a separate election, it looks like the recall election will actually have higher turnout than the general election!  Somehow 86 people have used fax machines to fax in their ballots, which I didn't even know was an option.

You can see that the map of early turnout heavily favors the Recall campaign as in general the closer you are to the coast, the more anti-Sawant it gets.



However I would hesitate before making any conjectures based on this data since Sawant voters notoriously wait until the absolute last second.  If the Recall isn't up by at least 60-40 on election night then she'll probably win in a landslide.  One of the truly aggravating aspects of our local elections, and to make matters worse, local media is all salivating to write their conclusions based on the election night returns, when we literally know nothing.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Only one week to go until the Sawant Recall election.

One the ground here in D3, the Sawant people have been out in force all over the Capitol Hill core.  My Recall Sawant yard sign has been stolen, I put up another one, it got stolen again, I put up another one, it got stolen again, so now I'm on my 4th one, and I bet by the time I finish writing this, it will have been stolen.

Put up a camera and record the car license plate number. 

I legitimately looked into this but the Recall campaign said people have already sent them these kinds of videos and they can't do anything with them so there's no point.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Only one week to go until the Sawant Recall election.

One the ground here in D3, the Sawant people have been out in force all over the Capitol Hill core.  My Recall Sawant yard sign has been stolen, I put up another one, it got stolen again, I put up another one, it got stolen again, so now I'm on my 4th one, and I bet by the time I finish writing this, it will have been stolen.

Put up a camera and record the car license plate number.

I legitimately looked into this but the Recall campaign said people have already sent them these kinds of videos and they can't do anything with them so there's no point.

Sure, but you can just publicize and kill any career in politics that person wanted to have. If it's a guy working for Sawant's party, it's a bonus for you considering you don't like them.

Lie in wait, have your phone on, guy comes up, start recording. "Hi, you're trespassing my yard. What are you doing removing my sign from it? What's your name? Oh that's a nice Hyundai you have there. I see your license plate number is AK1964." Then put it on social media.

It doesn't matter.  Four years ago Nikkita Oliver recorded -- on their own phone! -- a security video of themself harrassing a Safeway security guard and calling him a white supremacist.  They ended up getting the guy fired just because Safeway wanted to avoid the hassle.  A few months earlier they claimed on social media that they were attacked by a dog and then lost for hours in the wild forests of West Seattle.  This insanity was all in 2017 shortly after they lost the mayoral primary to Cary Moon.  And yet four years later they were a serious candidate for city council and nobody remembered/cared that they did all this crazy s--t.

[GeneralMacArthur]

https://mobile.twitter.com/Kshama_SC/status/1466069761805021189

This is pretty good PR to lower-engagement voters on paper- exactly the kind of coalition a more left-wing candidate would want in a heavily under-40, progressive big-city environment.

What does "top donors" mean?  Everyone has a limit of $1,000.  Are there really that many CEOs in Seattle?  Or did the Sawant campaign just cherry-pick a few of the people who donated $1,000 (there are hundreds) so they can say that CEOs are some of the "top donors"?

They've been using this "top donors" language all over the place.  Makes it seem like it's just a few people funding the Recall.  There are hundreds upon hundreds of people who have donated the max amount of $1,000 -- all of those people are equally at the top of the donor roll.  And they come from a diverse array of professions.

[GeneralMacArthur]

I think Sawant was able to successfully frame the 2019 election as a referendum on Amazon and big money (at least somewhat) and people who weren't big fans of her were willing to hold their nose and vote for her as a way of expressing discontent with the amount Amazon donated to the city council positions. I don't think this is going to work in her favor this time around, and the pro-Sawant crowd hasn't done themselves any favors with some of their more aggressive tactics. While calling it the "right-wing recall" may sway some people, I think people have had enough, and that she goes down by between 5 and 10%.

They were able to do so because it is the truth, the billionaires and other elite, but mainly the billionaires are the ones against her

https://mobile.twitter.com/Kshama_SC/status/1466069761805021189

This isn’t a matter of “tactics” dragging her down, indeed SAlt plays the game by an already biased rule set that I’ve explained here and in the third party thread beforehand, but of the core base of her support getting squeezed by the pandemic and it’s wider effects draining their livelihoods. A more exhausted and bankrupt group of supporters can’t chip in or do party work as well as what the elite class can pay with money and utilize already existing infrastructure—employer associations, lobbyists, the corporate media, even the government itself through setting the date separate from the rest of the election as a ploy to hope more transient and precarious people won’t show up to vote twice— to bring her down pound for pound.

Lol the tech worker probably makes more than retired people , real estate agents and many business owners

The term code monkey and crunch exists for a reason. This isn’t the 2000s, a significant amount of tech workers in our service-oriented economy don’t make middle class salaries anymore. And among those voting for Sawant, they skew towards the lower rungs of the payscale.

The ones who live in Seattle almost all work for top-5 firms.  Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook.  You can go aggregate her donor roll by individual employer if you want to prove me wrong.