Republican Ann Davison held a strong 58% to 41% lead in the race for Seattle city attorney, with returns Tuesday showing voters rejecting the brash language of her police abolitionist opponent, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy, in favor of Davison’s law-and-order stance.
No race in Tuesday’s city election was more fraught with the potential for unpredictable consequences than the race for Seattle’s official lawyer, who traditionally has prosecuted minor crimes and provided legal advice and defense for the city and its employees, including police.
At one end stood Thomas-Kennedy, a former public defender who wants to ultimately abolish misdemeanor prosecutions. During the unrest that swept the city in the summer of 2020, she tweeted about her “rabid hatred of the police” and pronounced property destruction during times of protest a “moral imperative.”