Kelabe Tewolde Is the Real Deal

On an August evening in Beacon Hill, in the back patio of the restaurant familyfriend, Kelabe Tewolde and his crew hovered around a laptop, waiting for the first primary election results to come in. As a first-time candidate, Tewolde hoped to get at least 40 percent of the vote. That would prove the progressive challenger had a serious shot at unseating Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos, who has represented the 37th District since 1999.

The primary election was a mixed bag for Seattle progressives, particularly those hoping to unseat incumbents. Hannah Sabio-Howell’s relatively high-profile campaign against State Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen hit a snag: she won just 24 percent of the vote. In Northeast Seattle’s 46th District, State Representative Gerry Pollet won over half the vote, beating out a pair of progressives. But Tewolde had a good night.

When the results came in, Tewolde’s supporters cheered. Tewolde exceeded expectations, winning 46 percent of the initial vote tally. As more ballots trickled in over the coming days, that number climbed to 51 percent, leaving Santos solidly in second.

Going into the general election, the contest for Santos’s State House seat is now one of the most hotly contested races in King County. It pits a young, progressive renter against an older homeowner and member of the local political establishment. Tewolde besting Santos was a longshot before the primary, but now he could be this year’s surprise political success story.

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The 37th is an oblong district that stretches from Madrona and the Chinatown-International District in the north down the east side of I-5 to Skyway and Bryn Mawr in the south. It’s one of the most diverse areas in the entire country, home to immigrant communities from all over Asia and Africa. It’s where Tewolde’s single mother, a refugee from Eritrea, found herself in 1994.

She struggled to afford housing, moving her family of two frequently, sometimes staying with extended family in South Seattle, sometimes living in public housing, or moving constantly to different rentals in North Seattle. There were years when they didn’t have a car and neighbors brought Tewolde to and from school. At his primary election party Tewolde said he and his mother were supported by “the dopest village ever,” a network of “aunties, uncles, and older cousins” who could help out.

When Tewolde was a child his grandmother, who essentially raised him until he was nine, died of lymphoma, leaving the family buried in medical debt. His mother had to declare bankruptcy.

His mother hid how desperate her economic circumstances were. “She made it seem like we were middle-class,” Tewolde says, “but we were pretty low on the totem pole.”

The summer after fifth grade, Tewolde got into Rainier Scholars, a nonprofit that helps underserved youth prepare for college. With assistance from that program and some prodding from his mother, he went to University Prep on a scholarship beginning in the seventh grade. That put him on a path to studying political science at Colgate, a private university in Upstate New York. He interned with US Senator Patty Murray, imagining a career as a political staffer. Instead, he wound up back at Rainier Scholars as an academic counselor in 2018, helping the kids who were in the same position he was in a decade earlier.

When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the world, Tewolde helped organize an effort by local restaurants like Musang and Lil Woody’s to get meals to food-insecure people. It was a “community effort,” he says and his role was “behind the scenes,” which suited him. He’s not someone who seeks the spotlight.

For a political candidate, Tewolde seems low-key; he’s not shy or awkward, but he doesn’t have the polished, glad-handing charisma that longtime politicians acquire. He dislikes candidates who make their campaigns all about them, the ones who say, “Get behind me.”

He didn’t think of himself as candidate material until this past year, when he met people at the progressive Working Families Party who encouraged him to consider running for office. With his strong ties to the community and educator background, he could help the progressive cause in Olympia. There was even an open spot in the 37th; Rebecca Saldaña left her State Senate position to run for King County Council, and kickstarted a game of political musical chairs. With Rep. Chipalo Street from the 37th running for Saldaña’s seat, Tewolde considered running for Street’s seat, but progressive Jaelynn Scott was already vying for it. He didn’t want to oppose Scott—“I’d rather vote for her,” he says. (Scott easily won her primary and is on track to become Washington’s first trans legislator.) Instead, he eyed a harder target: Santos, who had represented the district since Tewolde was four years old.

Sabio-Howell helped convince Tewolde to run against Santos just as she was running against Pedersen. She called him and, as she told The Stranger, said, “‘it’s time to get establishment leadership in fighting shape or out of the way.’” A progressive challenge would be beneficial regardless of who won, she reasoned. If the longtime incumbents prevailed, they might have to commit to progressive ideas including “protections for renters” and “taxes on corporations,” she says. “It’s through these challenges that we move the issues forward.” Tewolde agreed. The race was on.

Tewolde says that he’s trying to run a “respectful” campaign. He told the Hacks and Wonks podcast this summer that Santos “has a long legacy of doing right by the district, but… more recently has started to stray away from the progressive values of the 37th.” One of his major points of contention with her is that she was the only Seattle-area politician to vote against a rent stabilization bill last year.

That vote, Santos says, was motivated by her conviction that the bill was “a blunt approach to a problem that needed a fine-edged scalpel.” She was concerned that smaller landlords struggling from rising costs would be hurt by a cap on rent increases, Santos told The Stranger. Tewolde thinks “it’s wild” for a 27-year incumbent “to not be in favor of some sort of stabilization” when renters are now a majority in the district. “I’ve moved four times in the last six years,” he says, once because “the rent was too dang high.” He worries that when families are forced to move because they can’t afford housing—like his mother had to—it disrupts the lives of their children.

“When a kid moves, it throws everything off in their education journey,” he says.

Beyond the specific policy disputes with Santos, Tewolde is offering voters a fresh face. Democrats around the country are unhappy with party leadership and incumbents, and some of that dissatisfaction may be trickling down to South Seattle. Tewolde says that even when he knocks on doors near Seward Park—one of the district’s wealthiest neighborhoods—he’s gotten positive responses. “I was surprised that there were people that were pretty friendly and also interested in change,” he says, with some people saying, “‘Yeah, we need new leadership.’”

King County Executive Girmay Zahilay, Tewolde’s most prominent endorser, compared himself to Tewolde. Both men are sons of East African refugees and both experienced housing insecurity growing up in South Seattle. Zahilay won election to the King County Council in 2019 by defeating longtime incumbent, Larry Gossett. Tewolde could do the same if voters believe he embodies a new vision for the district.

“Kelabe is an educator and housing advocate who has spent his career investing in the community he’s from,” Zahilay said in a statement to The Stranger. “The 37th has always been special, and it’s ready for the next step.”

Sabio-Howell thinks that if Tewolde pushed Santos to make some progressive policy commitments, that would count as a win. But Tewolde isn’t interested in moral victories. “The time to push her toward progressive policy has passed,” he says of Santos. “I’m running to win so this district has a representative who shows up for the 37th.” He just might be able to.

For the next two months, Tewolde is living the life of a small-time candidate. He’s raised just over $82,600. He hasn’t hired a campaign manager, knocking on doors and dialing donors himself when he’s not working at Rainier Scholars.

Santos, who hasn’t faced many serious challengers in her political career, acknowledged to the Washington State Standard that she’s working harder than she has before. She’s outraised Tewolde, boasting a war chest of $140,000 and she’s endorsed by more politicians. But Tewolde is backed by Chris Reykdal, the state Superintendent of Public Instruction, and in a recent endorsement from the Seattle Times editorial board, the board called out Santos, the chair of the House Education committee, for her lack of vision on education.

Since the primary, more people are picking up Tewolde’s calls. He’s not just a candidate—he’s someone who can win. It’s a real race. “With those results, a lot of people are taking it more seriously,” he says.