Something interesting happened recently in the city of Snohomish mayoral and city council races. While Democrats performed well nationally, here in Snohomish voters decided to retire their liberal mayor and most liberal council member. What happened?
While some incumbent council members ran low-key campaigns and kept partisan rhetoric to a minimum, supporters of the liberal incumbent mayor and Snohomish’ longest serving liberal council member tried their best to link challengers to a Trumpian agenda and portray them as far right radicals, even though these are nonpartisan contests.
Surrogates for these two progressive incumbent candidates suggested things like the mayor of Snohomish must be pro-choice in order to fairly represent residents.
Others, like former council member Donna Ray suggested that challengers were part of a Christian Nationalist conspiracy to take over Snohomish. Even Hans Dunshee wrote on his Facebook page that a candidate merely voting for Trump should worry voters; should that candidate get elected.
Interestingly, those incumbents who minimized partisan rhetoric retained their council seats, while those whose supporters floated endless anti-Trump rhetoric were rejected.
Have voters finally soured on the tendency of many Democrats to view everything political through an anti-Trump lens? Did Snohomish just set an example on how to distinguish between ideology and demagoguery? Perhaps the image of an elected official brandishing a “No Kings” placard on a downtown street corner while claiming to represent all residents of small-town Snohomish was just too offensive for most voters to abide.
Scott Zaro
Snohomish
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