Campaign Fizz: Does Mallahan Think He Can? And: This District 2 Candidate's Net Worth Dwarfs the Entire City Council's

Today's Morning Fizz.

1.Joe Mallahan, a 2009 mayoral candidate who narrowly beat incumbent Greg Nickels in the primary and went on to lose to Mike McGinn, has been calling around to local political insiders about challenging Mayor Bruce Harrell, PubliCola has heard. Mallahan's victory in the August 2009 primary was widely seen as more of a defeat for Nickels than a victory for Mallahan's ill-defined agenda; as Josh noted in his interview of Mallahan for PubliCola that year, Mallahan "seemed to agree with the Nickels on all of Nickels' signature issues" and didn't present a strong case against the mayor.

Mallahan, who spent $230,000 of his own money on his 2009 campaign, didn't respond to a request for comment. In the 15 years since his defeat, Mallahan has voted consistently, and has donated sporadically to local candidates, including current King County Executive candidate Claudia Balducci (2025); Seattle Municipal Court Judge Pooja Vaddadi (2023); and then-councilmember Tim Burgess (2011.)

For those who weren't around at the time, this was an actual pro-Mallahan video produced by the Seattle firefighters union on Mallahan's behalf:

2. Takayo Ederer, a candidate for city council in District 2, is the only candidate to represent Southeast Seattle who did not responded to PubliCola's request for an interview. Since the only information I have about Ederer's political views comes from my Seattle Nice podcast co-host Sandeep Kaushik (make of that what you will!), I decided to take a peep at the political contributions she and her husband, real estate investor Daniel Ederer, have made locally over the years.

Here's a quick, noncomprehensive list that should give you an idea of Ederer's political leanings, as well as (perhaps) the reason she didn't bother calling PubliCola back. In 2025, Ederer listed her job status as "unemployed" and her occupation as "homemaker," although media reports have also described her as a karate teacher and the owner of her family's karate studio.

• Republican City Attorney Ann Davison (2025);

• Mayor Bruce Harrell;

• Republican gubernatorial candidate Dave Reichert (2024)

• We Heart Seattle activist and 43rd District state House candidate Andrea Suarez (2024)

• Recall Kshama Sawant campaign (2021)

• City Councilmember Sara Nelson (2021 and 2017, when she lost her first council bid)

• Conservative District 2 council candidate-turned-right-wing X provocatateur (and plagiarist) Ari Hoffman (2017).

Although Ederer grew up in Columbia City, the Ederers lived in Laurelhurst, then Madison Park, until 2016. The family lives in a rarefied enclave; after selling their Madison Park house for $2 million, they bought a $2.3 million house overlooking the water on a 15,000-square-foot lot in Seward Park; according to public records, they've since doubled the size of the house, increasing its value to $3.5 million.

According to campaign finance records, Ederer reported an annual income between $530,000 and $860,000 a year, and owns assets with her husband valued at at least $13 million, not counting their home; Ederer's true wealth, however, is almost certainly much higher, because nine of her 22 sources of investment income have values at "more than $1,000,000," the highest number the Public Disclosure Commission requires candidates to report.

That $13 million figure is lowballed in one other way: It represents the lowest range of every asset that is enumerated in Ederer's financial disclosure report. Assuming the higher end of the range (and still counting all nine of those "more than $1,000,000" as exactly one million dollars), that's a net worth of at least $15,000,000.

For comparison, the entire wealth of the current nine-member city council, not counting real estate, is less than $7 million, according to campaign finance records.

If elected, Ederer would be the wealthiest city council member in recent history. Although Mayor (and former councilmember) Bruce Harrell, who also lives in a $3.5 million view house on a huge lot in Seward Park, reported a similar household income, his non-real estate assets "only" add up to a minimum of $1.6 million, with three investment accounts valued at the vague "more than $1 million" level.