Socialism Goes Sideways in Seattle

Seattle’s experiment in social governance isn’t working. New York should pay attention.

Photo by Lalit Gupta on Unsplash

The leadership of the Democratic Socialists of America cites Zohran Mamdani’s popularity as proof that socialism works. But Mamdani’s not the only socialist mayor in America. Another is Katie Wilson of Seattle, first elected, like Mamdani, in November 2025. Seattle’s experience with socialist leadership has thus far been much rockier than New York’s.

Wilson’s approval rating is about twenty points lower than Mamdani’s. An early September poll found that 57% of New York City voters rated Mamdani’s job performance as “excellent” or “good.” An August poll found that 37% of Seattle voters approved of Wilson. Mamdani’s at least as popular as he was when he took office; Wilson’s popularity has dropped considerably.

Wilson defeated an incumbent, Bruce Harrell, who was well-favored to win at the campaign’s outset. She was a transit advocate, having helped found and run for many years Seattle’s Transit Riders Union, the equivalent of New York’s Riders Alliance. Mamdani has embraced the idea of municipal socialism as sewer socialism, most notably by means of his ostentatious pothole-filling. But Wilson is far better cast in that role.

“Sewer” connotes municipal services that are essential, too-often-taken-for-granted and just large, capital intensive. Which system checks all those boxes? Transit, especially with big cities. Arguably, no big city mayor should be considered a sewer socialist unless he or she is passionately committed to transit reform. Wilson cares about transit like Mamdani cares about Palestine. It’s the issue on which no one doubts her commitment. She supports Fair Fares-style subsidized transit but not necessarily free-for-all transit. And, unlike Mamdani, just making transit cheaper for riders isn’t the alpha and omega of Wilson’s transit agenda. If you really want sewer socialism, your model is Wilson, the workhorse to Mamdani’s showhorse.

That twenty-percentage-point polling gap raises doubts as to whether blue city residents really do want sewer socialism, though. It also attests to how mayors must be more than just single-issue obsessives. On most major policy questions in Seattle—crime, surveillance cameras, homelessness, the city’s budget deficit and slow-growing economy—Wilson has seemed outmatched, reacting rather than leading, “a work in progress.”

Both Wilson and Mamdani have had to rethink major campaign promises.

In the case of Wilson, that’s meant backing off on building a thousand new shelter beds per year to “end unsheltered homelessness.” Mamdani has backed off on replacing cops with social workers on mental health calls, expanding housing vouchers, giving bonuses to teaching paraprofessionals, and forbearing from homeless encampment sweeps. Mamdani seems to have backtracked on more promises than Wilson. What explains his superior polling numbers? “Charisma,” many would say. Wilson, who at first disdained even attending public ceremonies, very obviously lacks Mamdani’s social media chops (37,000 X followers to his 1.2M) and has no influencer army.

But it’s really more political heft than just charisma. Mamdani’s only major achievement thus far was helping eight candidates for office win their primary this past June. Wilson tried a similar kingmaker move and fell flat. She endorsed two candidates in Washington state legislative Democratic primaries in August, both of whom performed poorly. Mamdani, along with the New York City DSA, truly intimidates other Democrats. Wilson, not so much.

Wilson calls herself a “democratic socialist,” though she has never technically been a DSA member. The local chapter declined to endorse her in last year’s election partly because she was insufficiently left-wing but also because she didn’t want to subordinate her entire agenda to theirs. The daylight between Wilson and the Seattle DSA could, in theory, have made her more attractive to centrists. But by denying her access to the kind of organizational assets Mamdani has used to build his machine (doorknockers, etc.), Wilson’s independence from the local DSA may also have contributed to her political inadequacy and thus general perception of ineffectiveness.

Not that Seattle’s DSA, which one hears far less about than New York’s DSA, necessarily made out the better in that non-bargain. In America’s political system, parties are weak, and therefore organizations need good candidates more than vice versa. That applies to the DSA just as surely as it does to Democrats and the GOP.

On paper, Wilson had many qualities for socialists to admire: she proved she can win elections and is sincerely committed to governance, a quality the DSA’s going to need in candidates if for no other reason than to distract Americans from the organization’s fixation with wildly unpopular stances on social issues. She hasn’t proved an effective standard-bearer for socialism, but whether the Seattle DSA could have found a better one is another question. That things have gone sideways in Seattle for socialists says as much about the movement as it does about her.

One thing that Mamdani’s boosters get right is their supposition that socialism’s future will depend heavily on what mayors do. This is being a bit overlooked amidst the obsessive current focus on the 2026 midterms. U.S. Senators, members of the House, and state and local legislators all matter. But it’s often hard to get much done as a member of a legislative body. True, a small, intensely ideological cohort can hold a larger body hostage, Tea Party-style. But emulating the Tea Party, which didn’t last, is not a sustainable model. To generate true proof of concept, socialism needs to be applied to executive office, and in the near term that looks more likely to happen at the municipal rather than gubernatorial or presidential level.

However much DSA leadership wants to tout Mamdani, business and civic leaders in Seattle are now looking less to Mamdani than San Francisco’s Daniel Lurie. A centrist Democrat much in the model of Michael Bloomberg, Lurie’s work on street homelessness and economic development has created hope for his city and other West Coast communities wracked by crime, disorder, and disinvestment.

It’s obviously early for Wilson, as it is for Mamdani. But if things work out for her, that will likely result from her moving in a Lurie-like direction. Few outside of socialist circles believe that Wilson would get way more popular by becoming more left-wing.