Just months ago, Mayor Bruce Harrell appeared to be on an easy path to reelection. Now he faces low approval ratings, and multiple scandals. The first sign of trouble came in January, when a poll showed that about half of Seattle voters disapproved of the Garfield valedictorian and former city councilmember. Since then, an unfavorable election result and two scandals have made things worse for Harrell.
Last week, Mayor Harrell was accused by his niece and former second-in-command, Monisha Harrell, of creating a toxic and misogynistic environment at city hall. She revealed, in an interview with KUOW, that she was repeatedly made fun of and ignored by male colleagues when decisions were made. Reportedly the mayor and his advisors joked that her title, SDM or senior deputy mayor, stood for “So Damn Mad” or “So Damn Mean” and that they referred to her as the “SDM Nazi.” This treatment led to her resignation in 2023, but she has not made any public comment about it until now.
Members of the Harrell administration, including three women, have publicly downplayed and denied these accusations. However, KUOW spoke with six anonymous women who shared similar experiences in Bruce Harrell’s administration. They described being talked down to and left out of important meetings. This echoes the treatment from colleagues on city council that led councilmember Tammy Morales to announce she was stepping down last December.
Harrell is struggling policy-wise as well. There are signs that voters want a more leftwing mayor, to make progress on local issues and stand up to the Trump administration. In Seattle’s February election, Harrell endorsed initiative Prop 1B, which would scale down Seattle’s new social housing development plan. Prop 1B lost in a landslide to Prop 1A, a more progressive option which designates the development plan 50 million a year by creating a new payroll tax on companies with high-paid employees. This was a direct rejection of Harrell’s center-left policies, and of his public image, which was used to market Prop 1B.
Harrell faced further controversy earlier in February after local media learned of his 1996 arrest in Iowa, when he pulled a gun on a pregnant woman in a parking lot. Harrell and his spokesperson have called the incident a misunderstanding, and claimed that Harrell was unfairly confronted by a security guard because of his race.
Harrell is backed by the Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, a powerful business group which represents 2,600 companies in the Seattle area. The Chamber endorsed Harrell in his 2021 campaign and many of his biggest donors are members. Since then they have worked closely with Harrell on policies, including Prop 1B. Nonetheless, the Chamber of Commerce is a political organization which may lose confidence in Bruce Harrell.
If that happens, they have the ability to switch their allegiance to another pro-business candidate and to force Harrell out of the race.
