As incumbents reign, Tacoma deserves stronger challengers | Opinion
Tacomans chose five voting members for its city council on Tuesday. If things keep trending the way they are now, only one of those elected will be new to the city’s government.
Primary voters chose two candidates with city council experience for the Tacoma mayor’s race, putting two well-known names on the ballot this November. Anders Ibsen, who once represented District 1, is poised to win that race. As mayor, he’d have a vote on city council.
Meanwhile, all the incumbent city council members on the ballot appear to have beaten their challengers in Tuesday’s general election. That includes representatives for council districts 2, 4 and 5. Latasha Palmer is likely to be the only new face on city council as the candidate in the lead for Pos. 6, an open, at-large seat on city council.
There’s more than one reason for this state of affairs, and each race had its own players and central conflict. I’m also not saying incumbents are a bad thing. A bit of institutional knowledge and the time to work on hard problems can make a city council member an asset to our government.
Instead, it’s the lack of truly compelling challengers that I think is a problem.
One solution to consider: moving toward a full-time, professional city council. That would be a tough financial pill to swallow, and would require a leap of faith: that investing more taxpayer money in our elected officials and their support staff would lead to stronger candidates and leadership.
Meanwhile, challengers in Tacoma need to bring more than passion and a desire to serve the city. They need to be real with themselves about the level of preparation and grit needed to take on an incumbent.
Tacoma deserves strong candidates
Strong opponents push candidates to sharpen their messages and listen to constituents. That certainly happened in the heated mayor’s race.
For good or ill, the normally affable John Hines went on the offensive against Ibsen, questioning his ability to walk the ethical line between being mayor and running a local real estate business. The public got a reminder to watch Ibsen’s integrity.
Meanwhile, Ibsen pushed back on the effectiveness of Hines’ homelessness policy ideas. As a result, Hines had to explain how his policy in Tacoma meshed with the regional plan throughout the county.
That dynamic of holding each other to account will only grow as Hines remains on city council for the last two years of his current term. Good.
Now consider the unusual race in District 5 between incumbent Joe Bushnell and challenger Zev Cook. Cook out-fundraised Bushnell, so much so that an outside PAC took notice and campaigned against Cook while supporting Bushnell.
But despite her well-funded campaign and sharp message of lifting up working people, Cook has so far made the worst showing of any challenger to a Tacoma city council incumbent in this election.
Cook was backed by the Tacoma Democratic Socialists of America, and it’s easy to say her message was too extreme for District 5. Maybe. What I wonder is whether she was simply not polished enough to be believable as a city council member.
Beating a Tacoma incumbent is hard
This isn’t Seattle, where incumbent mayors in particular seem to have to fight for their lives. Tacoma conforms to the more standard reality that incumbents reap the benefits of name recognition, familiarity with how things work in government, and access to voters.
Name recognition can even make up for a relative lack of experience. For example, District 4 representative Sandesh Sadalge enjoyed the incumbent’s position even though he was appointed to his role roughly a year before the primary election, and was still a bit of a newcomer to Tacoma community improvement.
Perhaps he could have been knocked out of his seat based on his short record. Opponent Silong Chhun had the makings of a strong challenger as a Tacoma long-timer with a deep history of community advocacy. And indeed, Chhun has so far come closer than any other challenger to matching a Tacoma incumbent’s votes. That’s why I keep returning to Chhun’s endorsement interview with The News Tribune’s Editorial Board, when he came off as unprepared.
To be clear, I’m not rooting for anyone to lose their position, and I’m not saying it’s easy or simple to run a strong campaign as a challenger. But a closer election can force any incumbent to step up their game, and give voters the voice that comes with viable options.
Further professionalizing the city council could help motivate serious candidates. It doesn’t look like that will happen soon, despite efforts to bring the idea before voters.
A city charter commission proposed an amendment last year that would have made city council roles full-time positions, but the city council sent a somewhat different proposal to the ballot instead. The amendment, which passed, only required council members to prioritize their government work without formally making the role full-time.
With the city’s current structural budget deficit and a natural hesitance to give council members higher salaries, a change like this would face a tough road to victory.
For now, challengers will have to step up their game if they want to push sitting elected officials.
This story was originally published November 6, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
