Poll: Bruce Harrell leads in Seattle mayoral race, but many voters are still undecided

With Seattle's Nov. 2 general election just weeks away, many voters remain undecided about the future leadership of the city.

The new Crosscut/Elway poll revealed that similar to the primary election results, Bruce Harrell, former Seattle City Council president, held a lead over current City Council President Lorena Gonzalez, with Harrell polling 42% and Gonzalez at 27%. However, a large group of voters — 24% — remained undecided.

For position 8 on the Seattle City Council, incumbent Teresa Mosqueda polled 33% over newcomer civil engineer Kenneth Wilson, who polled at 17%. Still even more voters remained undecided: 39%, according to the poll. Fremont Brewing co-owner Sara Nelson had just a five point lead over community organizer and attorney Nikkita Oliver for position 9, with 34% still undecided in that race.

Attorney Ann Davison also held a tight lead over abolitionist public defender Nicole Thomas-Kennedy for the role of city attorney, although 45% of those polled said they remained undecided. Both Davison and Nelson's leads in their respective races do fall within the poll's five-point margin of error.

Voters overwhelmingly ranked the city's homelessness crisis as the most important issue influencing their vote this year. The poll revealed a key split in how voters would approach the issue, with 41% of respondents preferring to move people in encampments out of public spaces and into temporary shelters and 54% supporting developing permanent housing solutions and offering mental health services for those experiencing homelessness.

Although the controversial "Compassion Seattle" charter amendment will not appear on the ballot after a state court rejected an emergency appeal filed by the organizers earlier this month, 60% of those polled said they would vote in favor of a proposal. The failed ballot initiative aimed create an additional 2,000 units of emergency or permanent housing, expand behavioral health services for mental health and substance use disorder and remove encampments from public spaces like parks. A total of 30% of those polled opposed the proposal, while 11% remained undecided.

Funding and staffing at the Seattle Police Department (SPD) and crime in the city were also top issues. With SPD currently facing issues of short staffing, 54% of respondents supported hiring more police officers and providing more training. Conversely, 38% supported taking more money out of the department's budget and reinvesting in community services.

Earlier this week, the Seattle City Council shifted $5 million in salary savings related to officer departures to community based projects, but opted to keep $10 million in the department for technology. Mayor Jenny Durkan's request to allocate money for the recruitment and retention of officers was rejected by the council.

A majority of the respondents also felt that the city should be allocating more time and resources to reviving the city's downtown core. The area has seen a sharp increase in crime during the pandemic, with SPD's crime dashboard showing a total of 313 violent crimes like rape and assault and over 1,000 property crimes like arson and larceny reported in the neighborhood this year alone.

However, respondents differed in how they wanted to see crime in the city addressed, with 46% calling for more arrests and prosecutions for misdemeanors like shoplifting and 36% favored decriminalizing crimes of poverty and addiction.

The poll is not without some blind spots. Across the 400 voters polled, 78% were white, and a majority also owned the place they lived in. Only 19% of those polled were between the ages of 18 and 35, perhaps missing some of the city's more progressive voters.

One issue that will not make the Nov. ballot is the recall effort against City Councilmember Kshama Sawant. While the recall campaign submitted over 16,000 signatures to the King County Elections Office last week, a spokesperson confirmed that the ballots for the general election have already been sent to print without the recall on it. If found valid, the recall election would likely occur between November and January.