The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

Seattle elects Republican as city attorney, rejecting police abolitionist who celebrated property destruction

Seattle City Attorney-elect Ann Davison has sought to appeal to more-moderate voters. (Jennifer Buchanan/AP)

Ann Davison, a Republican who ran on a law-and-order platform, has been elected Seattle city attorney, according to the Seattle Times, beating a left-wing opponent who had advocated abolishing the police in an unexpectedly high-profile race.

The position is nonpartisan, but the election was the first time in three decades that deep-blue Seattle will have a Republican-affiliated city attorney. As of Friday evening, Davison had received 125,437 votes to Nicole Thomas-Kennedy’s 112,862. The Times called the election after reporting that Thomas-Kennedy needed to win close to 90 percent of the roughly 17,000 outstanding ballots to seize victory.

The city attorney leads prosecutions of low-level crimes and advises Seattle on legal matters. But the race was closely watched because it mirrored growing political polarization the country. Davison, a former Democrat, was affiliated with the “Walkaway” campaign — a pro-Trump initiative that sought to attract liberals to the GOP. Thomas-Kennedy is a self-described police abolitionist who has called people destroying public property “heroes.”

Seattle has been at the forefront of this polarization, with demonstrators establishing a police-free “Autonomous Zone” during protests last year, prompting a furious response from then-President Donald Trump.

A spokesman for Thomas-Kennedy said she would not concede on Friday night, and Davison, who will be the first woman to serve as city attorney, had not claimed victory. But writing on Twitter, Thomas-Kennedy acknowledged her opponent’s lead.

“Looks like Ann really needed every cent of that $365k in PAC money and all 8 of those ridiculous op-eds after all,” she said.

During the race, both candidates sought to appeal to more-moderate voters. Davison has called herself “a Seattle mom” who voted twice for Barack Obama and said she supported Joe Biden last year.

“I consider what occurred at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. on January 6 … to be disgusting, dangerous, democracy-threatening,” she wrote on her website.

Thomas-Kennedy said she is not advocating for the immediate abolition of police, calling it a process. Abolition does not mean a “lawless dystopian … future,” she wrote. “If we build healthy communities … where de-escalation and violence interruption are common skills … we won’t need cops, courts, and lawyers.”

Seattle, Washington state’s most populous city, has not had a Republican mayor since 1969. But Davison had the endorsement of several prominent Democrats in the state, including former governors Christine Gregoire and Gary Locke.

Husband-wife Seattle police officers fired for being at Capitol riot

After the murder of George Floyd, an African American, by a White police officer in Minneapolis last year, a grass-roots movement known as “defund the police” took hold in parts of the left. But after an increase in homicides, voters pushed back against the idea.

In Buffalo, voters rejected a mayoral candidate who had said that she would “absolutely” run on a defund platform, although she later sought to moderate that stance. In Minneapolis — where Floyd was killed — voters overwhelmingly said no to a plan to replace the police department.

And in Seattle, where government data show homicides increased between 2016 and 2020, a more-moderate candidate won the mayoral election, defeating an opponent who had advocated cutting police funds.

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