Alexis Mercedes Rinck ran on a platform of passing new progressive taxes to fund social services, affordable housing, police alternatives and community development. Voters elected Rinck 58%-41% over Tanya Woo, a more conservative opponent who’d been appointed by the Council to temporarily fill the vacant seat.
Now, less than a year later, Councilmember Rinck must run for reelection. The citywide Position 8 seat was previously held by Teresa Mosqueda, who left at the start of 2024 with two years remaining in her term after being elected to King County Council.
The Seattle Council appointed Woo to fill the seat until November, when voters elected Rinck to serve the final year of Mosqueda’s 2021-2025 term.
Rinck will face four challengers in the August primary.
Alexis Mercedes Rinck
Rinck has been in office for fewer than six months, leaving relatively little time to pass policy. One of her most substantive moves as a new Councilmember was creating the Select Committee on Federal Administration and Policy Changes, a body meant to help the city respond to the impact of President Donald Trump’s orders on federal funding and immigrant and LGBTQ+ rights.
Prior to her election, Rinck was an assistant director at the University of Washington working on state budget and policy issues. Before that, she was a policy analyst for the King County Regional Homelessness Authority and Sound Cities Association.
If reelected, Rinck wants to prioritize the same issues she ran on in 2024, including passing new progressive taxes, expanding affordable-housing options, increasing staffing for law enforcement and police alternatives and fighting for better worker protections.
Jesse A. James
Jesse James is a rock and metal musician and a political journalist. He is on the board of the newly formed Cascade Party of Washington, a centrist political party launched by former Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic.
According to his campaign website, James’ top priorities are safety and affordability. He wants to abolish the sweetened beverage tax, calling it regressive for consumers and small businesses. He also wants to end the Democracy Voucher program, saying it has served incumbents and big-name candidates rather than the grassroots candidates it was meant to. James supports light-rail expansion, affordable-housing programs like the Multifamily Tax Exemption and the SOAP and SODA prostitution and drug banishment zones.
Ray Rogers
Bishop Ray Rogers is an ordained minister and presiding bishop of the Full Gospel Pentecostal Assemblies in King County. In addition, he leads Circle of Love Outreach, engaging with and providing resources for people experiencing homelessness, domestic abuse, sex trafficking and addiction.
Rogers applied to fill the District 2 vacancy after former Councilmember Tammy Morales resigned in January. On his campaign website, he said his top priorities are public safety, housing and homelessness, the drug crisis and small-business support and jobs development.
On public safety, Rogers wants an all-of-the-above approach that includes more traditional first responders along with investments in behavioral health programs and police alternatives. To address the fentanyl crisis, he wants to see drug distributors punished, while increasing funding for detox centers and broader distribution of overdose reversal medications.
Rogers wants the Council to provide more support to small businesses while also protecting livable wages. In addition, he wants more trade apprenticeship programs to help people access job opportunities.
Rachael Savage
Rachael Savage owns The Vajra, a jewelry and incense shop on Capitol Hill, and runs a meditation and addiction recovery nonprofit. She is in recovery herself and has been a vocal critic of Seattle’s response to the drug crisis and homelessness.
Savage initially entered the race for mayor, but pivoted to running for the citywide Council seat before the May 9 filing deadline. Though Seattle’s elected positions are nonpartisan, Savage has said she joined the Republican party because of her disappointment with Democrats’ handling of drugs and public disorder.
Savage wants to see police arresting more people who use drugs and people with untreated mental illness in public. She wants to create new long-term residential treatment facilities “away from our city neighborhoods” to help people with recovery. Savage opposes the “housing first” approach to permanent supportive housing that moves people off the street without insisting they address their addictions first.
Cooper Hall
Cooper Hall does not yet have a campaign website and did not respond to Cascade PBS’s request for information about their campaign for City Council. According to a state Public Disclosure Commission filing, Hall worked as a field coordinator with the Washington State Republican Party in 2024.
Correction: A previous version of this story referred to it as the District 8 seat. It is called Position 8.
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