Seattle’s new mayor Katie Wilson was recently sworn into office – the first Seattle inauguration in over a decade that’s been open to the public. Coming from a background of activism and advocacy, Wilson plans to make Seattle a city by the people, for the people. “This is your city,” she declared to the crowd during her inauguration ceremony.
Wilson, 43, is the youngest Seattle mayor in a generation. Building the foundation of her administration on affordability and community for all Seattle citizens, she has a decidedly different approach to city leadership. After narrowly beating the opposing candidate Bruce Harrell by just 2000 votes, Wilson claims the position of Mayor after her first time running.
Determined to continue her career of advocating for affordability and community resources, Wilson intends to use her newfound position of leadership to continue listening to citizen voices to influence and aid her decisions. “No matter what neighborhood you live in, where you grew up, or how much money you make, you have a right to be here and to live a dignified life,” she stated in her message to the community.
Within her first week as Mayor of Seattle, Wilson has already laid down some of her top priorities for the city. Referencing the rates of unsheltered homelessness within Seattle, Wilson stated her administration plans to open emergency shelters and get people inside as soon as possible. In the long term, her team intends to build tiny-house-style shelters, measuring success by the number of unsheltered people sleeping on the streets going down.
This isn’t the only change in leadership we’ve seen within this past election. While Seattle has Katie Wilson, New York has Zohran Mamdani: These two candidates are currently the only mayors within the United States who are socialist. Not only this, but Wilson is the first self-described socialist mayor in the United States in its entirety since 2017.
The progressive political views of both Wilson and Mamdani have caught the attention of President Donald Trump who refered to Wilson as a “very, very liberal-slash-communist mayor.” She took this description from the President in stride, joking “it’s nice to feel seen” in response.
Unsurprisingly, Trump displayed a similar attitude towards Mamdani, calling him a communist on several occasions and attempting to warn New York City of his extremely left-leaning policies.
Both Wilson and Mamdani ran campaigns largely focused on affordability, including lowering the costs of housing and public transportation in their respective cities. They are candidates advocating for the people, having previous experience with making change within the community. While Wilson was co-founding the Transit Riders Union, Mamdani was working as a housing counselor helping low-income homeowners in Queens, N.Y.
In a country led by self-identified nationalists such as Trump himself, policies of both Wilson and Mamdani exhibit a very distinct change. Could this be evidence of the communities of both Seattle and New York fighting against increasing costs of living? Or could it be an indicator of potential widespread national change in both leadership structure and policies?