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Andres Salomon drops out of the mayoral race

One of the first challengers to Ed Murray has ended his campaign

By Sarah Anne Lloyd
J Brew/Flickr

Just a day after urban planner Cary Moon announced her candidacy, safe-streets activist Andres Salomon has decided to end his.

“Over the past two weeks, the race has been completely transformed,” said Andres in a statement on Thursday morning, citing both Moon and former mayor Mike McGinn’s candidacy. “Rather than split the vote with others who share my values, I feel that it’s now time for me to bow out of the race.”

Salomon, a software engineer, was one of only a handful of candidates to challenge current mayor Ed Murray at the beginning of the race—before a lawsuit surfaced alleging that Murray had sexually abused a teenager in the ‘80s. Murray has denied that claim, as well as similar allegations by two other men.

Educator, attorney, and spoken-word artist Nikkita Oliver also announced before the lawsuit.

In his statement, Salomon detailed what inspired him to run against Mayor Murray in the first place, including funding cuts to the Bicycle Master Plan, a “completely bungled” bikeshare program, closed sidewalks with no “coherent rules,” lack of city action after cycling deaths, and Murray changing his mind on HALA recommendations for single-family zones.

Salomon said he “begged” people to run against Murray, but nobody would do it. “I felt I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t have any real desire to become a career politician, but I believed that I could do better than Murray.”

He said two of his picks for Mayor—McGinn and Moon—are now both in the race.

The statement has another nugget of news in it: McGinn had been considering his run since January. When Salomon asked McGinn for feedback on his platform, McGinn said he couldn’t do it in good conscience, since he was considering his own run. Regardless, they stayed in touch about the campaign.

“When the Murray scandal broke, I emailed him but there was no response,” he said. “I knew that meant McGinn was in.”

With his candidacy over, Salomon will focus on transportation advocacy. “I look forward to a better Mayor in 2018.”