Sara Nelson’s election to the Seattle City Council’s at-large Position 9 seat in 2021 was seen by many as a turn by voters away from the Council’s increasingly progressive positions. Nelson ran on a promise to be pro-police and pro-business, and was elected alongside Mayor Bruce Harrell and City Attorney Ann Davison, who had similar platforms.
Seattle voters affirmed that political shift in 2023 when they elected a slate of five district councilmembers who are closely aligned with Nelson’s political vision. Nelson took the lead as Council president just two years into her first term.
The 2025 Position 9 Council election will give voters a chance to respond to Nelson’s leadership of the Council and the more conservative bent she and her colleagues have brought to City Hall.
Nelson faces three opponents in her bid for reelection.
Sara Nelson
As Council president, Nelson has made good on her promise to prioritize police hiring. Last year, the Council voted to increase hiring bonuses to $50,000 for experienced officers and raise salaries for entry-level officers to $103,000, the highest wages for new officers in the state.
It’s part of an effort by the mayor and Council to offset a years long trend of officers quitting faster than new ones can be hired. At the start of 2025, city leaders celebrated when the police department hired one more officer than it had lost to attrition in 2024.
Nelson has also been a business ally, proposing an unsuccessful rollback of the city’s gig-worker minimum wage, opposing a new business tax to fund social housing and opposing a city-level capital gains tax.
Nelson has also worked on Seattle cultural issues, including creating the city’s first Film Commission to help support the local film industry.
On her campaign website, Nelson said her priorities for a second term include drug and mental health treatment, public safety, small business support, arts and culture, housing affordability and community building.
Dionne Foster
Dionne Foster is executive director of the Washington Progress Alliance, a progressive advocacy and grantmaking organization. Under her leadership, the Alliance helped fight for the passage of the state capital gains tax. Prior to that role, Foster worked as a senior program officer at the Seattle Foundation and as a policy advisor at Seattle Public Utilities.
Foster’s priorities include creating healthy and safe communities, housing affordability, climate resilience and workforce protection.
To improve community health and safety, Foster said she wants to ensure citizens get “the right response” to every 911 call. That means rebuilding Seattle’s police force as well as expanding alternative responder programs like the CARE Department and investing in community violence interruption nonprofits.
Foster wants more investments in subsidized affordable housing and temporary shelters like tiny homes. She also sees the comprehensive plan update as critical for expanding market-rate housing options in the city and supports rent stabilization and other protections for renters.
Connor Nash
Until recently, Connor Nash was an economist with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. He left the role in April under a mandate to relocate to Washington, D.C., and because he didn’t want to continue working for the Trump administration. Prior to that, Nash worked for the state Department of Health and in the state Attorney General’s consumer protection division.
On his campaign website, Nash said his top priorities are accountability and transparency, a Green New Deal, public safety and small-business support.
Nash’s vision of a Green New Deal is to recommit revenue from the Jumpstart payroll tax on big business to its original intended purposes of supporting affordable housing, environmental programs, small businesses and equitable development programs.
On public safety, Nash wants to repeal the Council’s new drug and prostitution banishment zones, calling them “useless and ineffective.” Instead, Nash wants to invest in Seattle’s drug court and bolster street outreach efforts.
Mia Jacobson
Mia Jacobson does not yet have a campaign website. Jacobson did not respond to an email from Cascade PBS asking about her campaign priorities.
Correction: A previous version of this story referred to it as the District 9 seat. It is Position 9.
