The party/launch social gathering for Ry Armstrong’s mayoral marketing campaign final week promised to be “essentially the most enjoyable political occasion” I had ever attended.
It is not at each one in every of this stuff {that a} drag queen errors flimsy stage panels at Right here-After for a stable wall, leans again on them mid-strip tease and practically knocks them helter-skelter. They wobbled and she or he froze, standing stick straight along with her arms clasped to her face. This acquired fun, so with a smile she resumed, slipping gold sequined material over her ankles prefer it’d gone off and not using a hitch. It wasn’t a packed room, however attendees crammed a minimum of three quarters of the seats. Standing at a podium in an emerald inexperienced jumpsuit, Armstrong requested the group to have a look at the folks beside them.
“That is our metropolis, and collectively, we’ll craft a future that displays the true which means of unity, a Seattle the place everybody belongs and nobody is left behind, even essentially the most susceptible. Will you be a part of me on this endeavor?”
At this the group snapped and whooped, and gave a full spherical of applause when Armstrong repeated the road a second time with all of the sing-songy cadence of a principal at a pep rally. The following speaker, Emily Pinckney, a member of town’s Inexperienced New Deal Oversight Board, joked Armstrong was the one particular person they knew who’d give a speech at their party.
Armstrong speaks with the practiced cadence of a politician, or a minimum of with the aptitude of an actor who minored in poli-sci and is aware of the way to sound like one. They’re comfy earlier than a crowd as a result of they grew up in entrance of them. As a baby, Armstrong sang with the Seattle Symphony and studied theatre at Central Washington College, the place they have been pupil physique president throughout their final yr. Overtly homosexual in a conservative city, they are saying they have been threatened and harassed.
Having had sufficient of Ellensburg, they chased, or maybe ran away towards, their appearing goals to New York Metropolis. They carried out off-Broadway, toured nationally with Instructor from the Black Lagoon, and landed minor display roles, together with a bit-part in Uncut Gems as “Norwegian Boy.” Throughout quarantine, they filmed The Gilded Age, HBO’s single season American swing at Bridgerton. After filming in COVID quarantine, Armstrong moved residence to care for his or her ailing grandfather.
At a restaurant in Capitol Hill the morning earlier than the launch social gathering, Armstrong held up their hand and curled the fingers right into a trembling claw, a mimic of their grandfather’s arms on the finish of his life, the consequence of two uncommon genetic circumstances and the repetitive movement of fileting fish at Sales space Fisheries in Ballard for 35 years. Armstrong mimed the slicing movement with a grimace, earlier than bringing the dialog to unions. Armstrong’s grandfather was a union man. So have been their mom and father, a nurse at College of Washington medical heart and a Boeing electrician. Armstrong is an MLK Labor Delegate for SAG-AFTRA and an elected member of the Nationwide Actor’s Fairness Affiliation, a part of the AFL-CIO, a federation of labor unions, representing 50,000 actors from Texas to Hawaii.
That is Armstrong’s second go at elected workplace. In 2023, they burned out within the major race for Kshama Sawant’s Metropolis Council seat in District 3. Outspent by massive enterprise, progressives have been slaughtered that cycle. One progressive reply to that downside was the PAC Progressive Folks Energy, or P3, which Armstrong briefly chaired. (P3 has not backed Armstrong’s run, or mentioned something about their candidacy by some means).
Uneven a taking part in area as it might be, their marketing campaign didn’t pan out in any respect. Only one.86% p.c of the voters (a complete of 488 folks) voted for Armstrong in that race. They’re not simply an underdog to average incumbent Bruce Harrell on this race, they’re an underdog’s underdog to Katie Wilson, common secretary of the Transit Riders Union and a fixture of metropolis corridor, who introduced her marketing campaign final Wednesday.
There’s additionally MAGA-loving Rachel Savage, the Republican who hawks crystals and incense at Vajra in Capitol Hill, who’s campaigning to dam everlasting supportive housing and arrest homeless addicts as technique of restoration, a doubtful resolution. Joe Molloy, a homeless man who says he misplaced his housing final yr as a result of an unsupported incapacity, is operating his grassroots marketing campaign from Tent Metropolis 3, a roving encampment. I requested Armstrong why, in the event that they have been creamed in a Metropolis Council race, operating for Mayor ought to go any higher.
Alexis Mercedes Rinck’s victory over Metropolis Council appointee Tanya Woo in November appeared to them a very good check case for consolidated progressive assist knocking out candidates backed by outdoors spending. However they heard Dionne Foster was difficult Metropolis Council President Sara Nelson. Wanting to remain out of her manner, Armstrong eyed the Mayor’s race. So far as they might inform, Harrell was too susceptible for no person to problem him; and on the time, no person appeared to be standing up. So that they thought, “Why the hell not?”
Apart from, after Donald Trump’s re-election, they felt compelled to face for one thing. Armstrong, who’s non-binary and on town’s LGBTQ fee, just lately began gender-affirming care at Kaiser. They wished to ship a message that queers in Seattle wouldn’t be cowed.
However “please vote for me, I’m homosexual,” Armstrong’s marketing campaign just isn’t. They’re operating on a concise, four-pillar platform: Construct extra housing, spend money on security, empower employees, and supply reasonably priced childcare for all—lofty objectives that they are saying they’d obtain with progressive income taxes, such because the 5% payroll tax on corporations making over $1 million a yr that can pay for social housing, a profitable marketing campaign Armstrong waged alongside with Home Our Neighbors.
First although, they’ll want about 250 signatures and 250 donations by Could 9 to qualify for the Democracy Voucher program, which supplies every Seattle resident 4 $25 coupons to spend on political campaigns. It is a taller order than the 150 signatures and donations they wanted to qualify for the council race, in order that they’ve been working the telephones. They’ve known as 500 folks within the final two weeks. One girl thought Armstrong was an AI and demanded they show they have been who they mentioned they have been. Armstrong wasn’t certain if she believed them. Fashionable marketing campaign issues.
Armstrong says they’re an “out of the field” thinker. After they ran for Council, a museum on a ship in New York impressed a novel resolution to homelessness. Why not convert a retired battleship into 2,000 models of housing, and dock it on the Port of Seattle? The place this ship would come from, how it will be transformed, the price and what companies can be concerned, Armstrong didn’t precisely know, however they aren’t afraid to throw out wacky concepts simply to see what sticks.
They’re assured of their grasp on housing, labor and sustainability—Armstrong co-directs the non-profit Sustainable Seattle—however say their true talent is listening and connecting with others. The Mayor must be a humble govt, they are saying, asking easy questions of the good folks they encompass themselves with to maneuver town towards motion.
“I perceive individuals are afraid of change,” Armstrong says. “I feel it’s time for Seattle to turn out to be a metropolis. I feel we have to upzone. Even the Mayor’s comp plan just isn’t sufficient to satisfy the wants of what our local weather resilience goes to seem like over the subsequent 20 years, not to mention the refugee disaster [of those] coming to a welcoming sanctuary metropolis.”
On homelessness, Armstrong thinks a disaster should be met with a disaster response. To accommodate a minimum of a few of the 16,000 folks estimated to be dwelling on Seattle’s streets, Armstrong says town might assemble 1,000 models of shelter on metropolis or county land on the similar fast tempo momentary area hospitals have been constructed throughout COVID. Armstrong wouldn’t construct extra congregate shelters—which regularly include extreme limitations and security considerations—however particular person models like microstudios or tiny properties that homeless individuals are extra prone to settle for.
Packed congregate shelters provide little privateness. Taking residence in a single usually means ditching belongings (together with out of doors gear), pets, and companions, for a short lived mattress. That’s a foul deal for anybody who expects to finish up on the road once more. It’s not a thriller why somebody would as a substitute select a tent and a few company.
Harrell didn’t ship on the two,000 new models of momentary shelter and housing he promised in his first yr. Armstrong needs to accommodate 1,000 folks in 100 days.
With sufficient cash, Seattle might construct quick. Tiny properties will be manufactured in weeks and current property will be leased and transformed. Loads will line as much as fill these beds, and extra will wait to take their place as soon as these within the first group leapfrog to one thing extra everlasting. However that course of isn’t automated.
To maintain folks from dead-ending in shelter, or worse, ending up lifeless, skilled employees would want to handle any constructing, tiny residence village, or tent metropolis, and work from detailed security protocols and a mannequin to stabilize folks earlier than they’re shepherded to everlasting supportive housing or sponsored residences. That’s assuming we’ve sufficient locations for them to go, which we don’t. We’d should construct extra housing for them to enter.
Armstrong mentioned town would lean on community-based providers just like the Downtown Companies Emergency Middle, SHARE / WHEEL and the Low-Earnings Housing Institute (or LIHI) for expertise, staffing, “and culturally competent assist from day one.” They’d pay for it by rising payroll taxes by JumpStart, town’s Enterprise & Occupancy tax, and a emptiness tax. (Although a emptiness tax might fly afoul of the state structure’s uniformity clause. In Washington, all properties should be taxed equally).
And by public security, Armstrong does imply cops, however not cops doing “seven jobs directly.”
They’re for a CARE (Group Assisted Response and Engagement) Division that truly features as a viable police different, moderately than the attenuated kind it’s taken underneath town’s MOU with the Seattle Police Officer’s Guild (SPOG). That settlement caps the CARE group at 24 members and requires officers to accompany them on calls—or a minimum of log out on them.
Armstrong says they’d attempt to persuade the cops they’d be “higher off” with out these duties. “I really feel like law enforcement officials need to specify their position once more and never be catch all,” they are saying. “I feel me saying, I’ll fund a CARE Staff separate, that’s autonomous from you, that’s capable of do the type of work that lots of your officers are doing and aren’t capable of reply in a quick method, I feel that may be an incentive.”
Armstrong appeared undaunted that that argument hasn’t labored but or that SPOG has fought to limit the CARE Division. D-43 Rep. Shaun Scott tried to avoid SPOG this session with a invoice to permit cities and cities to kind impartial civilian response groups, but it surely didn’t escape the Home.
Their dialogue of public security doesn’t finish with cops, although. Armstrong additionally needs folks to have the ability to mosey over to Pony “in heels” with out worrying about harassment, or a driver hitting them on a darkish road on their manner there. They need fundamental infrastructure enhancements like extra road lights and crosswalks.
The battle for $15 was greater than ten years in the past and Armstrong says it’s time for us to cease clapping ourselves on the again and ask what we are able to do subsequent to enhance the lives of employees. They pointed to the $44.7 million in wage theft town’s Workplace of Labor Requirements (OLS) collected between 2014 and 2024, which they in comparison with a Spotify wrapped (of stealing).
They need extra OLS investigations, and to develop the company to operate as a micro model of the Nationwide Labor Relations Board. Companies making over $1 million a yr would have automated checks on their labor practices, which might be publicly displayed like a well being ranking. Armstrong needs to strongarm tech corporations into reconsidering gas-guzzling, road-hogging return to work insurance policies. Even when which means bursting into Amazon and demanding to see CEO Andy Jassy concerning the dent they’re placing in our local weather objectives with these massive glass balls of theirs.
“I feel Seattle used to guide the area in labor,” they are saying. “We are able to’t hold resting on our laurels. The Mayor’s workplace has to step in and be the equivalence of energy to massive enterprise. Proper now, I really feel like we’ve been purchased and paid for for 10 years.”
In Seattle, a yr of kid care can price greater than a yr of school tuition at College of Washington and daycare waitlists could be a yr lengthy. tuition at a Armstrong needs to be a mother or father and says nobody must be pressured to decide on between household and profession.
Armstrong envisions turning empty workplace buildings everywhere in the metropolis into day care facilities, although not each constructing can meet state licensing requirements. Children want to have the ability to simply escape from fireplace exits in case of emergency and children want a spot to play outdoors. If the constructing doesn’t have its personal, it wants a partnership with one which does. Daycares should additionally hold excessive staffing ratios, one grownup for each 4 infants or seven toddlers; to maintain these workers from leaving that demanding job, they’ve acquired to supply a dwelling wage. Armstrong says they’d choose buildings primarily based on how briskly or simple they’d be to transform them. The cash for all this might once more come from enterprise and notably giant companies. They’ve additionally toyed with the thought of proposing a brand new tax profit district for childcare, much like what Seattle voters authorized to fund metropolis parks in 2014.
Again on stage, Armstrong promised to show their imaginative and prescient into actuality.
“For too lengthy, we’ve let infinite debate and bureaucratic inertia block the daring motion we all know is feasible,” they mentioned. “That ends proper now.”
Outdoors the theater at Right here-After, supporters drank beer and ate frosted chocolate cupcakes close to the bar.Even a girl who mentioned she was allergic to sugar, in order that they will need to have been good.
Crystal Yingling’s non-profit Theatre Puget Sound, of which Armstrong is a board member and grew up auditioning for, would have closed if Armstrong hadn’t pushed for a brand new settlement with town. She thinks town wants massive change, and Armstrong “was good at massive change.”
Alison Pieper fondly recalled the Seattle she moved to 12 years in the past, which wowed her with its bustling vitality and a mayor who rode his bike to work. It’s fizzling for her and she or he blames the final three mayors (“simply dangerous to dangerous to dangerous.”) She says she used to work for town, however left partly due to Harrell’s hostility towards metropolis workers throughout an 18 month contract battle.
“I type of took it personally,” she says. “I felt like he wasn’t looking for the staff maintaining town going, doing the important providers. I misplaced religion in him.”
Kevin Troutt, a wedding and household therapist in Seattle, mentioned solely a change in management goes to wriggle this metropolis out of the “untenable scenario” it is in now. At one level, Troutt considered difficult Sara Nelson, and met up with Armstrong over a cup of espresso to speak politics. Troutt modified his thoughts, however the assembly left an impression.
“Ry is somebody who made me really feel very heat and welcome, and I feel somebody who is ready to try this for somebody they simply met, who’s simply an particular person desirous to be taught extra, is prime to constructing a very good group round them and that’s what makes me excited. Lots of conferences are transactional. I felt like I met one other human who cared concerning the metropolis.”
