By Jason Del Rey | November 11, 2019
Fist raised, Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant enters the room at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute on Saturday, backed by supporters with a “Tax Amazon” banner. Sawant declared victory, despite the nearly $1.5 million Amazon spent to defeat her and other council candidates. “Our movement has won, and defended our socialist council seat for working people against the richest man in the world,” she said. (Alan Berner / The Seattle Times)
Amazon poured nearly $1.5 million into last week’s Seattle city council elections, aiming to defeat local, progressive politicians who supported a tax on big business that Amazon opposes.
It didn’t work.
On election night, Amazon’s key political nemesis, Kshama Sawant, originally trailed by 8 percentage points — but over the weekend, she declared victory after ballot counts put her ahead of her Amazon-backed rival by more than 3 percentage points. Election tallies indicate that only two of the seven candidates Amazon backed will win, meaning the company’s efforts will fail to tilt the council in a pro-big-business way that would benefit Amazon.