Mallahan Says He Voted GOP in Hopes of Hurting Trump, Sawant Proposes "Battering Ram" Free Health Care Initiative

Today's Afternoon Fizz.

Via Instagram (@joemallahanformayor)

1. In a recent email to supporters, Mayor Bruce Harrell said that one of his opponents, Joe Mallahan, had voted in the 2024 Republican primary.

"It’s official: Joe Mallahan — the failed 2009 mayoral candidate who still hasn’t told voters what he’d actually do for Seattle in 2025 — now has a special interest Independent Expenditure propping up his dishonest attacks," the campaign email read.

"You read that right: Mallahan, who voted in the 2024 Republican Presidential Primary, is relying on big money and negativity instead of sharing any real vision for Seattle’s future."

After the email went out, Mallahan contacted PubliCola to say Harrell had it wrong—"the only dirt that Bruce Harrell can dig up on me is that my Bellingham cousin, Joe, apparently votes republican. I'm a clean machine," he said.

But then, two hours later, Mallahan followed up. "Hey, I made a mistake! I did vote for Nikki Haley that year to try to deprive Trump of delegates. Lots of progressives did," he wrote.

Washington's March 12 Presidential primary came one week after Trump locked down the Republican nomination on Super Tuesday. Haley dropped out of the race on March 6, and all 43 of Washington State's Republican delegates went to Trump. Haley received a little over 150,000 votes in Washington—including, apparently, Mallahan's.

2. Harrell's email, which warned that "Mallahan plans dark money attacks– we need to fight back," was more than a little disingenuous. Harrell, not Mallahan (or progressive frontrunner), is the real beneficiary of independent spending in the mayoral race; so far, the committee campaigning for his reelection, Bruce Harrell for Seattles’s Future, has raised more than $100,000, compared to $0 for the Mallahan Can PAC.

Harrell's own "dark money" PAC has received funding from a who's who of local developers and real estate investors, including former Pine Street Group executive Matt Griffin, Wright Runstad and Runstad executives Howard and Judith Runstad, the Master Builders Association's Affordable Housing Council, and executives from Safeco Insurance, Remitly, Weyerhauser, and Premera.

3. Former Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant, who's running for Congress against District 9 (South Seattle) Rep. Adam Smith, has filed a local initiative titled "Free Healthcare Now" that reportedly aims to raise $5 billion over an unspecified period to provide free health care to everyone in Seattle. The measure would go on the ballot in 2026, according to a May 24 registration with the state Public Disclosure Commission.

The campaign has not reported raising or spending any money yet.

Workers Strike Back, Sawant's political organization, has circulated a petition calling for a national free public health care system, and held an event last month to vote on "using local & state ballot initiatives, beginning in Seattle, as a battering ram to win Medicare for All nationally."

We've reached out to the campaign to find out more about the proposal, including what kind of tax they will propose. For comparison, the $1.3 billion, six-year Families, Education, Preschool and Promise levy proposal will cost a median Seattle homeowner $656 a year.