As of Oct. 11, Jenny Durkan has raised $728,000 and the Chamber’s pro-Durkan PAC has raised nearly $900,000

Political observers say the race for Seattle mayor is close—except for money. Former U.S. Attorney for Western Washington Jenny Durkan and her allies have a huge fundraising advantage over social-justice urbanist Cary Moon. As of Oct. 11, Durkan’s own reported fundraising combined with the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce’s pro-Durkan political action committee have raised over $1.6 million. Moon has only reported $237,000, nearly $112,000 of which the candidate contributed herself. In the next month, Durkan will try to use her fundraising advantage to defeat Moon, before the voters even cast their ballots.

John Wyble, a 30-year campaigner and a principal at WinPower political consultancy, says you can tell the race is still up for grabs because Durkan, the presumed frontrunner, is attacking her opponent. It’s usually the underdog who attacks, while the frontrunner tries to look noble by staying above the fray. “The Durkan campaign is incredibly nervous about being cast as the downtown business-establishment candidate so they are working very hard to define Moon in a negative light early,” says Wyble. For instance, Durkan has mischaracterized Moon’s housing proposals as “xenophobic,” “discriminatory” and “wrong.” (Moon, as expected, has also been aggressively attacking Durkan.)

“This race is close,” says Monisha Harrell, senior partner at Rule Seven, a Seattle marketing firm. She notes that neither candidate has picked up endorsements from three of their primary opponents: lawyer and activist, Nikkita Oliver; state Senator and grassroots Democrat, Bob Hasegawa; and mainstream urbanist and transportation wonk, Jessyn Farrell. Former Mayor Mike McGinn has endorsed Moon, but he only got 6.5 percent in the primary.

Both Wyble and Harrell agree that the race could change in the next month if Durkan is able to bury Moon with a huge advertising blitz.

Is Durkan struggling with Hillary Clinton syndrome?

Durkan’s resume and issue advocacy make her a strong candidate for Seattle mayor: she was President Barack Obama’s U.S. Attorney for Western Washington; she is a major player in the state Democratic Party; she has a long history of advocacy for police reform—both as U.S. Attorney and as a private citizen; and she has had an important role in the LGBTQ movement, including being the first openly LGBTQ U.S. Attorney. Durkan has the support of most of the labor community including the M.L. King Labor Council and the Service Employees International Union, 775. She also boasts endorsements from Democratic big wigs like Gov. Jay Inslee, Attorney General Bob Ferguson and King County Executive Dow Constantine. Her liberal, Seattle-establishment politics are reminiscent of other recent Seattle mayors: Norm Rice, Paul Schell, Greg Nickels and Ed Murray (the sole exception being McGinn). She has raised a whopping $728,000 from 3,120 donors and shows no sign of slowing down. On the stump, she has a polished answer for every question. Durkan has much better name identification than her opponent. Although Durkan has never held elective office, she seems like a professional politician.

Some observers argue that all of this, which usually would help a candidate, may this year, hurt Durkan. According to this argument, Donald Trump’s presidential victory has changed the city’s political environment. Durkan represents the status quo and Seattle voters want change.

Wyble says, “Authenticity matters. People’s b.s. meters are off the charts.”

Moon is nothing if not authentic. As a candidate, the urban planner is a proud political amateur. On the stump, Moon doesn’t always have an answer right away. Her answers reflect her complex, evolving ideas. Her campaign, wisely, is trying to make a virtue out of this quality.

Moon is best-known as an advocate for tearing down and not replacing the Washington State Alaskan Way Viaduct. Instead, starting in 2004, she argued for reducing road capacity through Seattle and relying on increased transit, bicycling and walking. She also maintained that if the state reduced car capacity in this way, people would drive less. Her ideas were anathema to the business community, most elected officials and a majority of Seattle voters.

In 2014, Moon inherited around $3 million. “I have thought long and hard about how to use that money for the public interest.”

For the next three years, she worked on “issues in a deep transitional way.” Three projects emerged from her political journey: participation in the Progress Alliance of Washington, a group that aims to build a “permanent and powerful progressive movement supported by a network of committed donors;” a series of articles about Seattle’s housing crisis written with The Stranger’s Charles Mudede, a Marxist urbanist; and the founding of Washington Democracy Hub that works to increase voter access and participation and to get money out of politics.

Moon needs money, Durkan has it

As the race heads into its final month, Moon needs to get more money into her political campaign.

Harrell says, “Moon hasn’t become a household name yet. She needs TV. She needs airtime.” Both Harrell and Wyble agree that Moon must do a minimum purchase of $75,000’s worth of TV advertising. When you add in the cost of direct mail and web advertising, the Moon campaign needs a total advertising budget of around $150,000.

From Aug. 31 to Oct. 8, Moon only raised $36,000. If Moon’s fundraising doesn’t rapidly increase, she’ll have to dig into her own pocket again. In the primary, Moon contributed $112,000 to her own campaign.

Wyble thinks Moon will raise enough money to do the basics.

Meanwhile, Durkan will be running a deluxe campaign.

From Sept. 1 through Oct 9, the Durkan campaign reported raising $190,000. Durkan shows no signs of slowing down—in the first week of October, she raised $32,000.

To date, Durkan has not self-funded her campaign, contributing only $400 of her own money. She certainly could, however, if she believes it is necessary. At $4 million, her net worth is even higher than Moon’s.

And we haven’t even gotten to Durkan’s big money yet. By Oct. 2, the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce’s pro-Durkan political action committee, Civic Alliance for a Sound Economy (CASE) had raised an unprecedented $871,000. Its biggest donors were: Amazon $250,000; Vulcan, Paul Allen’s development company, $83,000; and CenturyLink $32,500.

CASE has only endorsed four candidates: Durkan, Constantine, City Council candidate Sara Nelson and City Councilmember Lorena Gonzalez. Nelson lost in the primary and neither Constantine nor Gonzalez has serious opposition. That means whatever money CASE spends in the general election will go to Durkan. To date, CASE has spent nearly $300,000, most of it for the primary election including $118,000 for Durkan. That leaves them $500,000 to support Durkan in November’s general election.

Durkan and her allies will have more than enough money to fund all three legs of the ideal electoral stool: TV advertising, direct mail and personal voter contact—both by telephone and door-to-door.

It will be a hard advantage for Moon to overcome. Yet, as The Stranger’s Heidi Groover points out, “In 2009, the last time there was no incumbent in the mayoral race, McGinn won an unlikely victory after being out-fundraised by more than half a million dollars.” In U.S. politics, money usually wins, but not always.

Questions, tips, comments: georgehowlandjr@gmail.com

Award winning journalist George Howland Jr has been hired by Seattle Displacement Coalition to write for Outside City Hall about city politics, housing, homelessness and land use. He works under his own editorial direction. The Displacement Coalition plays no role in choosing his specific subjects or editing his copy. He has never even been to a Huskies’ football game with the Coalition’s John Fox.