Alexis Mercedes Rinck Wins Decisively Over Appointed City Council Incumbent Tanya Woo

Woo, appointed in January after losing her election bid last year, has not yet conceded.

By Erica C. Barnett

While the national election results slowly rolled in on a small TV screen oriented toward in the back bar, the crowd at St. John's Bar & Eatery was incongruously jubilant as they celebrated first-time candidate Alexis Mercedes Rinck's overwhelming victory—57 to 42 percent!—over appointed city council incumbent Tanya Woo.

(Shaun Scott, who previously ran against now-former council member Alex Pedersen, won the open 43rd District state House even more decisively over We Heart Seattle founder Andrea Suarez, with 68 percent of the election-night ballot drop, and 46th District Rep. Darya Farivar won reelection with 88 percent; it was their party too, but we're focusing on the local council race.)

"YEEEEEEEEEEEEAHH!!" someone yelled as the 8:15 results rolled in, and it was easy to harbor a brief hope that Pennsylvania had somehow, against all odds, swung for Harris. But no—the results were in for local races. And despite the insistence of some local politicos that Presidential election years have a more conservative voter base, Rinck was much further ahead than she was at this time in the August primary, when she led Woo 47 to 41. (Rinck ultimately won the primary by 50-38).

"We didn't just win an election," Rinck said last night. "We turned a new page. We wrote a new chapter, one that says this city belongs to everyone."

Rinck, at 29 the youngest person ever elected to the Seattle City Council, won decisively despite a late-breaking spend by a business and real-estate-funded PAC that tried to paint her as an a radical leftist who would eliminate funding for police, encourage encampments everywhere, and "bankrupt the city" by pouring money into corrupt anti-homelessness schemes.

They also misspelled her name, in a touch of extra sloppiness that accentuated the plug-and-play laziness of the last-minute hit job.

Rinck's election doubles the number of progressives on the nine-member council to two, including District 2 Councilmember Tammy Morales, who defeated Woo last year and was in the celebratory crowd last night, along with former council members Lisa Herbold and Andrew Lewis, who quipped: "Tell Sandeep the NPI poll WAS wrong—it totally underestimated Alexis' win!")

Woo did not have a public election-night party.

Rinck and Morales won't be able to counterbalance the council's recent rightward tip on their own; with five new council members still in their first years, the council majority will remain centrist-to-conservative for several years to come. But her margin of victory in this citywide race could be a cause of concern for Council President Sara Nelson, who defeated Nikkita Oliver in 2021 in the same backlash election that put Republican Ann Davison in charge of the city attorney's office. (Nelson and Davison both lost their previous races for city council, in 2017 and 2019, respectively).

Davison is up for reelection next year, too, as is Mayor Bruce Harrell. And while there's no way to know yet if this year's council election results will resonate in next year's lower-turnout, odd-year election, it's clear that this year at least, local voters weren't interested in more of the same. Because Woo is serving out the remainder of former councilmember Teresa Mosqueda's 2021-2025 term, Rinck will take office immediately after the election is certified on November 26 and will have to run again next year.