More than a week after Election Day, Binghamton native Katie Wilson was declared the winner of Seattle’s mayoral election. Wilson, a self-described democratic socialist, defeated incumbent Democrat Bruce Harrell with 50.2 percent of the vote.
Wilson is the daughter of David Sloan Wilson and Anne Clark, both biology professors at Binghamton University. She ran on a platform that promised to build affordable housing, maintain efficient and affordable public transit, achieve climate justice, ensure public safety and promote economic development.
“From the earliest age, Katie was coming with us into the laboratory, helping out with our field research and hanging out with our graduate students and stuff like that,” David Wilson told Pipe Dream in an interview. “And so I think that what she soaked up was the academic culture and a lot that comes with it because, of course, if you’re an academic, then it’s very important to tell the truth.”
Wilson is the co-founder and executive director of the Transit Riders Union, “an independent, democratic, member-run union of transit riders organizing for better public transit in Seattle, King County and beyond.”
Along with building affordable housing units, Wilson pledged to crack down on deceptive landlord practices, create a new city department to protect renters’ rights and build a database with accessible rental units for people with disabilities. She also plans to fix Seattle’s roads to improve wheelchair, pedestrian and bike accessibility.
David Wilson said her background in Binghamton gives her “a very academic approach to her topics,” meaning she understands “policy issues in detail.”
Wilson graduated from Binghamton High School as salutatorian and went to Oxford University to study philosophy and physics. However, she dropped out of college six weeks before graduation.
Wilson’s win comes as Zohran Mamdani, a progressive New York state assemblyman from Queens, will become the next mayor of New York City after winning the general election. Mamdani, also a self-described democratic socialist who ran on a platform of affordability, publicly congratulated Wilson on her win in Seattle.
“Seattle voters made their voices heard: they want a new kind of politics — one that rejects corporate PAC money and delivers for working people,” Mamdani said in a social media post. “From one Mayor-elect to another, wishing you the best. Seattle is in great hands.”
Wilson’s platform has also focused on creating a “Trump-Proof Seattle,” which will defend against potential cuts to federal grants and partnerships like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Her campaign website states that one of her first political acts in Seattle was joining a protest for immigrant and workers’ rights in 2006.
“I vow to protect our neighbors and defend Seattle’s status as a sanctuary city,” Wilson’s campaign website reads. “We must also step up to fill in the funding gaps, or we will find ourselves unable to deliver the basic services that people depend on.”
In response to Wilson’s win, Trump told the press he would relocate the 2026 World Cup Games if he deemed Seattle an unsafe place to host and said Wilson was “very, very liberal-slash-communist.”
Harrell, a former Seattle city councilman who was elected mayor in 2021, promised improvements on transportation, city safety, homelessness, climate action and inclusive governance. Wilson criticized Harrell’s administration for failing to adequately address homelessness.
Harrell’s campaign argued that Wilson was not experienced enough to be Seattle’s mayor and claimed Wilson’s parents pay her bills in a scandal Wilson herself called “Momgate.”
“Katie Wilson has never had to struggle because her parents are still paying her bills at age 43,” said a spokesperson from Harrell’s campaign in an Oct. 23 press release. “We cannot risk handing over the reins of the city to someone who has never managed an employee, doesn’t track her personal finances or those of her one-person non-profit, and who lives off their parents’ paychecks. Bruce knows what it means to work hard for opportunity. He and his family have lived the challenges that Katie Wilson claims to understand, but has yet to experience.”
When asked about “Momgate,” Clark said her daughter “never asked for our support.” While she and her husband helped their daughter pay for daycare while she was campaigning, they do not financially support her otherwise, she added.
Clark and Wilson also offered advice for BU students interested in making political change.
“I always used to say to all my undergraduates, ‘You’re paying for it,’” said Clark. “You’ve got four years. You largely have kind of a freedom you’re never going to have again. So, wading in and just learning everything you can about perspectives on all of these things that are of interest to you.”