Pete Holmes concedes Seattle city attorney race; Thomas-Kennedy, Davison will face off in November

Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes relented Friday as he fell further behind his two main opponents in an election that will end his 12-year term.

The outcome will give Seattle a clear choice in November between a law-and-order candidate and an abolitionist who wants to stop most offense charges.

“After two decades of public service for Seattle – the last twelve as your city attorney – it is time to acknowledge that my opponents will advance to the general election,” Holmes said in a prepared statement. “Defeat is difficult to accept, but compared to the collective pain we suffered as a city during this pandemic, it is insignificant.”

Holmes was in third place after Friday’s vote with 31% of the vote. He followed the challengers Nicole Thomas-Kennedy with 35% and Ann Davison with 33%.

And while thousands of ballots remained untold, the trendlines offered no reason to believe that the results would affect Holmes’ path.

Holmes was in second place, leading Thomas-Kennedy on election night with about 550 votes, but Thomas-Kennedy has won every day since then and took the lead for the first time on Friday as ballots received later continue to be processed, counted, and approved become . Davison led on election night and now leads Holmes to second place with 3,141 votes. The two candidates with the most votes come to the parliamentary elections on November 2nd.

A little over 41,000 Seattle votes were included in Friday’s release. According to the King County elections, Seattle has about 30,000 to 35,000 votes left to be counted.

Davison says Holmes prosecuted too few offenses (the prosecutor doesn’t care about offenses), while Thomas-Kennedy says he prosecuted far too many.

Holmes wished both candidates the best of luck, adding, “With a city so ideologically fragmented, anyone who wins will certainly need it.”

But he had few other kind words, either for his opponents or for the mayor of Seattle, Jenny Durkan, whose legal office is represented by the city attorney.

“After facing one candidate who thought my criminal policies were too lax and another who thought they were too draconian, it is clear that Seattle is a city of broken views that unfortunately reflects the polarized politics that grips our nation “Said Holmes. “Whether the Republican candidate or the Abolitionist candidate prevails in November, you will face a truly daunting array of challenges, including protecting the city from an avalanche of litigation from the Durkan government and a thousandfold criminal. “Case backlog that resulted from the pandemic closure of our courts.”

Without naming them, he criticized both challengers for what he called inaccurate portrayals of his tenure – Davison has portrayed him as negligent about crime, while Thomas-Kennedy has described him as overly punitive.

“The prosecution is not responsible for crimes like murder, burglary, drug offenses or car theft,” said Holmes. “Low-level cases like shoplifting and trespassing are referred to the newly established Community Court, where intervention and recovery are the result, not prison.”

Seattle political advisor Sandeep Kaushik said the November matchup showed a deeply divided city with two candidates, each with support but also potential baggage.

“You have a significant part of town that Nicole Thomas-Kennedy likes and her abolitionist views,” said Kaushik. “There are also a large number of people who think this prospect is nonsensical and even terrifying.”

Davison, an attorney and arbitrator, has put the spotlight on increasing crime and homeless camps. While supporting services and interventions for people with addiction problems, she says the city should no longer ignore harmful criminal behavior and disorder.

This is Davison’s third straight run for elected office. She ran for Seattle city council in 2019 and Republican for lieutenant governor in 2020, switching parties after declaring the Democratic Party had become intolerant of dissenting views.

While the city attorney’s position is impartial, Davison’s GOP affiliation is sure to be an issue for critics. Seattle has been hostile ground to Republicans for decades; Only 8% of city voters supported President Donald Trump in 2020.

Thomas-Kennedy, a first-time nominee, is a former public defender who is running for abolitionist and says she will try to drop most of the wrongdoing charges. On her website, she explained her views, saying that police and prisons do not promote public safety but achieve what they are supposed to do: control and disappear the poor, disabled and BIPOC, referring to blacks, indigenous people and people of color.

Even in a solidly progressive city, Thomas-Kennedy is likely to re-emerge controversial statements from the past during the general election campaign. Last summer, amid national protests against police killing of blacks, she tweeted: “The destruction of property is a moral imperative.” Holmes condemned this statement as “outrageous and inappropriate”.

The turning point for Holmes came after years of criticism of his office’s record of prosecuting offenses. More recently, he apologized for suing the Seattle Times in an ongoing dispute over missing text messages from Durkan and other city officials.

Holmes, a former bankruptcy attorney, was elected city attorney in 2009, beating incumbent Tom Carr. He was re-elected in 2013 without a dissenting vote and easily defeated his challenger Scott Lindsay in 2017.

Before election day, he had signaled that his political future was in danger, but said he was at peace with voters’ decisions. “That’s the way it is. I have to deal with it. I’m a big boy,” he said at the time.

Left-wing candidates also won other city-wide races in Friday’s count, including those for mayor and city council position 9.

In the race for mayor, former city council president Bruce Harrell will meet current city council president M. Lorena González in the general election. Harrell had led González by nearly 10 points on election night, but with the release on Friday González closed the gap to less than 4 points. Harrell has 35% of the vote versus 31% for González.

Business owner Sara Nelson led the race for city council but has seen her lead over activist and lawyer Nikkita Oliver drop from about 7 points on election night to less than 1 point after the count on Friday. Nelson has 40% of the vote, up from 39% for Oliver.