It seems like it is only a matter of time before the nation’s tech bro revolution figures prominently in Seattle’s 2025 political battles. Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office is explaining away his comments praising Elon Musk and other MAGA-aligned tech leaders last week while addressing the city’s business community at the annual “State of Downtown” gathering.

“The mayor was not praising them, he was referencing they have an objective reputation as leaders in technology and innovation, and that it is a danger they are in the president’s orbit,” the mayor’s spokesperson told Publicola trying to explain the praise.

“We know that our current president surrounds himself by some of the smartest innovators around,” Harrell said as he veered off script in his business-friendly speech at the Downtown Seattle Association event. “When we drop names like Andreessen or Peter Thiel or David Sacks or Elon Musk, these are smart innovators.”

The nuanced praise for Musk in the shadow of his Department of Government Efficiency work to gut major areas of the federal government and his increased efforts supporting right wing campaigns around the globe comes as Harrell is shaping his reelection campaign with themes around “common values,” “public safety solutions,” and “proven leadership to stand up for our values.”

With his job going up for a vote, the veteran Seattle politician does not seem interested at this point in engaging in extra tangles with the Trump administration — though his office said the mayor “certainly doesn’t agree with their politics” in the statement provided to media in the wake of last week’s Downtown Seattle Association speech.

It will be a tricky row to hoe for Seattle leaders facing reelection in 2025.

Monday morning, City Attorney Ann Davison, who ran for Lt. Governor as a Republican in 2020, released a statement calling Seattle a “Welcoming City,” avoiding the “Sanctuary City” label championed in past battles with Trump over immigration, as she announced Seattle will join San Francisco, Portland, “and many other jurisdictions across the country” in filing suit against the Trump administration over its threats to cut to cut federal resources to cities “that do not conduct federal immigration enforcement.”

“It is not against the law to be a welcoming city. For more than 20 years, the City of Seattle, by ordinance, has directed its employees to not inquire about a person’s immigration status, absent a legal obligation to do so,” the Davison statement reads. “It is well within our authority to direct our employees in this manner.”

Davison announced in January she would seek reelection joining public safety collaborators Harrell and City Council president Sara Nelson on the Seattle campaign trail.

In the mayor’s race, meanwhile, none of the candidates lining up to oppose Harrell at this point have the mayor’s name recognition but one of them is being very straightforward in their approach to Making America Great Again.

“Calling all MAGA Republicans in WA State. We need your help from outside the blue city,” Harrell challenger and Capitol Hill shop owner Rachael Savage pleaded on social media this week seeking financial support for her campaign.

CHS reported here on Savage’s campaign launch as a Republican for the non-partisan mayor’s office as the candidate is promising to lead an end to “the addiction and mental illness epidemic” with a major crackdown in which the city’s police and prosecutors “arrest, charge and convict every person committing crimes on the streets of Seattle no matter how small those crimes are.”

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