Nadine Woodward looked nervous when she took the stage on election night. The first ballot drop showed Spokane's mayor trailing former longtime Democratic state legislator Lisa Brown by 3.5 points. And the conservative City Council candidates who aligned themselves with Woodward were even further behind their progressive opponents.
"We got this. We got this!" Woodward told the crowd. "We knew all along this was going to be extremely tight."
But over the next few days, as more ballots were tallied, Brown's lead only grew. On Monday, Woodward called Brown to concede. With only a handful of votes left to count, Brown was ahead by 4 percentage points (about 2,800 votes).
"Being able to serve the city I love as mayor has been an honor and a privilege," Woodward said in a statement. "We embraced the opportunity in every challenge, put the community first in everything we did, and accomplished so much to advance your priorities."
Brown — a former state Department of Commerce director, chancellor for Washington State University Spokane and state Senate majority leader — will be Spokane's 46th mayor.
"We called for common ground and experienced leadership," Brown said in an interview Monday. "It feels like that's what prevailed, and I'm happy about that."
Brown says she personally knocked on over 1,000 doors while campaigning, and her team as a whole knocked on over 18,000.
"In the end, I think that was really part of our success." Brown says. "I think that kept my campaign evolving in terms of how we spoke about the issues in a way that resonated with people."
BY THE NUMBERS
Three of the four progressive City Council candidates who ran as a ticket with Brown were also victorious this year.
In the race for City Council president, Council member Betsy Wilkerson beat former local business owner Kim Plese, with 53% of the vote as of Monday.
Progressive activist Paul Dillon, who until recently worked as vice president of public affairs for the local Planned Parenthood, beat Katey Treloar, a former educator, by 6.6 points in the race for south Spokane's District 2.
The largest progressive victory was in northwest Spokane's District 3, where environmental advocate Kitty Klitzke beat Earl Moore, a former respiratory therapist, by nearly 20%.
The only conservative candidate to come out on top is incumbent City Council member Michael Cathcart, who has a 12-point lead over progressive advocate and former neighborhood council chair Lindsey Shaw in the race for northeast Spokane's District 1.
The progressive victories indicate that Spokane City Council will maintain its five-person progressive supermajority. With Brown leading the administration, the results mark the end of an era of divided city government.
ELECTION NIGHT PLAYLIST
Even before the first ballot count dropped on Nov. 7, there was a sense of optimism in the air at Riverside Place, where progressive candidates and their supporters gathered for an election night watch party.
As attendees drank wine and snacked on charcuterie-filled cones, there was excited chatter about the results coming out of Ohio, where voters had approved a ballot measure to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution — a major victory for Democrats and other defenders of women's health care rights in post-Roe v. Wade America.
Brown, Wilkerson, Shaw, Dillon and Klitzke ran as a tight progressive ticket this year. They pooled volunteer resources, teamed up for doorbelling sessions and even collaborated on an election night playlist stacked with songs by Coldplay, Michael Jackson, Elton John and other Gen X-coded classics.
As she waited for the results, Wilkerson said she was feeling hopeful and was focused on healing the divides caused by the barrage of attack ads against her and other progressive candidates this year.
"I've already started those conversations with some other leaders," Wilkerson said. "On Nov. 8, how do we start bringing our city back together? Because there's work to do."
Brown says she hopes to help heal some of those divides by bringing people with differing points of view on contentious issues like homelessness and public safety to the table during her transition process.
"On Nov. 8, how do we start bringing our city back together? Because there's work to do."
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Millions of dollars in outside spending poured into this year's city races, and the vast majority was spent supporting conservatives and attacking progressives. It appears the influx of cash largely failed to pay off.
However, while progressives won most city races, voters also overwhelmingly supported a camping ban those progressive candidates opposed. The city-only ballot measure criminalizes camping within 1,000 feet of schools, parks, playgrounds and child care facilities. The liberal candidates had argued Proposition 1 would face legal challenges and would only shuffle people experiencing homelessness to other parts of the city.
The initiative overwhelmingly passed with 75% of the vote.
Brown says she heard a lot of frustration about homeless camping from Spokane residents, and she knew from the moment the ban was proposed that it would pass.
"I sympathize with that frustration," Brown says. "Although I opposed the proposition, it wasn't because I want to see people camping near parks or schools."
The proposition faced legal challenges earlier this summer, and the advocates who challenged the ban are still awaiting a final ruling from the state Court of Appeals.
"A law is a law," Brown says when asked what her administration will do if the legal challenges fail. "Then the question becomes, 'How do you realistically enforce it? My goal would be to come up with ways where we can do outreach and offer places for people to be."
MEANWHILE, A FEW BLOCKS AWAY
Woodward and the other conservative candidates held their election night watch party at Barrister Winey, just a few blocks from the Democrats. Shortly after 8 pm, Woodward and the other candidates departed to a private room to watch results come in.
The wine was flowing freely, but it wasn't enough to stop the mood from turning sour as the first batch of ballots dropped.
"Measure 1 is getting destroyed," someone groaned, referring to the county ballot measure that would have raised the sales tax by 0.2% to fund a new jail and other public safety measures.
Liberals called the proposal a blank check that lacked clarity on how money would be spent. Voters seemed to agree: The measure failed, with only 33% voting in support.
Shortly after ballots dropped, Emily Strode, who once worked as a campaign manager for U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and did consulting work for a number of conservative candidates this year, took to the stage to calm people's nerves and remind the crowd that there were still tens of thousands of ballots left to count.
Someone in the back of the audience — who seemed like they'd had too much wine — interrupted Strode's speech and started yelling about how "maybe we should go back to in-person voting."
Back at the Democrats' party, the mood was celebratory.
"We have some big challenges ahead of us, but I believe we can take them on together," Brown told the cheering crowd.
CITY COUNCIL SHUFFLE
Wilkerson's victory in the City Council president's race means she'll have to give up her current seat representing District 2. Council members will have to appoint a resident of that district to serve the two years left in her term.
It'll be the latest reshuffle in a confusing game of musical City Council chairs. Earlier this year, Council member Lori Kinnear took over as interim City Council president after Breean Beggs left early for a judicial appointment. Kinnear also represented District 2 and is at the end of her two-term limit. After she took over as president, the council appointed longtime community advocate Ryan Oelrich to temporarily fill her District 2 seat.
Both Wilkerson and Dillon will take office immediately after results are certified on Nov. 28 to fill the seats that Kinnear and Oelrich have held temporarily. Other newly elected candidates will take office in early January.
When asked if he plans to apply for Wilkerson's soon-to-be-empty District 2 seat, Oelrich said he was "focused on finishing strong" and planning to talk with his husband and make a decision over Thanksgiving break. ♦
