For the first time in 10 years, Kshama Sawant will not be on the ballot for Seattle City Council in District 3. Her decision to devote her considerable energy to worker organizing has created opportunities for other candidates to enter the race with hopes of success.

District 3 includes Capitol Hill, the Central District, and parts of First Hill — all neighbors that voted solidly for Sawant in the past — as well as wealthier areas in Montlake and along Lake Washington.

So far, five candidates hope to succeed Sawant on the City Council. Of the five, four identify as Queer.

Andrew Ashiofu

Seattle LGBTQ+ Commission Co-Chair Andrew Ashiofu ran last year for a seat in the state legislature representing the 37th District, and is now making his first run for the Seattle City Council. He notes that, if elected, he would be the council's only Black member, the only out Queer member, the only openly HIV-positive member, and the only member to reveal that they were previously homeless.

According to Ashiofu, his family kicked him out of the house in 2010, after he told them he was Gay. Because he had no job, no prospects of finding one, and no money saved up, he became homeless. His only resource for finding work and housing was free internet access at a public library.

Not surprisingly, helping Seattle's growing homeless population find permanent shelter is one of his top priority issues. His strategy is what's known as the "housing-first" option — in other words, find permanent housing for the unhoused, then deal with any social or medical problems they may have.

"All I needed was one person to give me a roof and an opportunity to get myself together," he told The Stranger in an interview. "I don't buy into the ideology that homelessness is caused by drugs and mental health issues. Homelessness is due to housing affordability, due to housing accessibility, and housing availability."

Ashiofu supports Seattle Initiative 135, which would authorize a Public Development Authority to plan and build government-owned-and-operated social housing. He refers to Amsterdam's 40-40-20 rule, which requires new housing projects to consist of 40% social housing, 40% affordable housing, and 20% market housing.

Ashiofu portrays himself as the logical successor to Kshama Sawant. He supported her in 2019 over Egan Orion, he says, and he voted to retain her in the recall election in 2021. "Out of respect" for her, he adds, he waited to announce his bid for the District 3 seat until she formally announced she would not seek reelection.

Joy Hollingsworth

A candidate who did not wait for Sawant to exit the race is Joy Hollingsworth, who announced her bid on Martin Luther King Day. A third-generation resident of Seattle's Central District, and granddaughter of civil rights leader Dorothy Hollingsworth, she said in her announcement that she was running to bring a missing Black and LGBTQ+ perspective to the City Council.

Hollingsworth is also interested in housing policy, but she insists that it must be adapted to the city's communities. She says she wants to help the City Council think more critically about how legislation affects communities by involving stakeholders from those communities in the process.

"When you're creating policy, you want a policy so embedded that it doesn't have to be a policy anymore — it's just a way of life. And we just haven't figured that out yet," Hollingsworth said.

She also calls for "rebuilding trust" between Seattle police and the communities they operate in. The first step, she says, would be to make sure that police officers are part of the communities they patrol. She wants officers to know the business owners, community leaders, and other neighbors in the area, as they did when she said when she was a kid, and people knew cops by name, not by their badge.

Ry Armstrong

Ry Armstrong says on their website that they hope to be "the first gender-nonconforming, queer candidate to represent all of Seattle District 3."
Armstrong has appeared off-Broadway as an actor in Pete the Cat, and also developed the Indie Chameleon record label. They also founded the Queer Global Arts Fest, a pay-what-you-can, annual festival dedicated to the empowerment of artists in the LGBTQIA+ community.

Armstrong says their campaign will focus on three goals. First, the "right to shelter," giving unhoused individuals the resources they need to get back on their feet. Second, they want to make Seattle the first large carbon-neutral city. Third, they hope to reform Seattle police with "independent accountability and robust resources for both people of color and the SPD."

Asukaa Jaxx

The fourth Queer candidate in the race is Asukaa Jaxx, who has run for a number of city offices. Jaxx typically runs an unfunded campaign, and is not expected to advance thru the primaries in August.

Alex Hudson

The fifth candidate in the race is Alex Hudson, executive director of Transportation Choices Coalition and former blogger for Seattlish.

Hudson describes herself as an "urbanist at heart," and is running on a program of developing public transportation, including reviving the downtown streetcar project shelved by Mayor Jenny Durkan, and expediting West Seattle and Ballard light rail linkups.

Hudson also believes the city needs to find alternatives for uniformed police. The City should not rely on cops to be mental health professionals, drug counselors, or housing connectors, she says. She hasn't committed to channeling any of the current police budget to possible alternatives, however, and also won't commit to raising taxes to fund alternatives.

She says Seattle's government has not been serious enough about solving the city's urgent problems.

"It's my expectation that leaders in City Council are really, really serious about solving the city's problems at the speed and scale of words like 'crisis' and 'emergency,' which I just don't see," she said.