In our endorsement for the August primary, we wrote that “The race for Position 8 is crammed with excellent candidates.” That remains true. Jon Grant and Teresa Mosqueda have each raised nearly $300,000 in campaign donations from $25 Democracy Vouchers. Both have signed onto the Housing for All Seattle campaign, which seeks to dramatically increase the city’s investments in subsidized housing and to reform evictions of unauthorized tent villages so that they help campers instead of simply suppressing them. Both support progressive taxation and other good reforms, like decriminalizing public safety and weaning Seattle from fossil fuels. Both boast solid resumes filled with progressive organizing. There has been some criticism that Grant—a white cisgender heterosexual man—is hogging space from a Latina who can bring more diversity to city leadership. As a rule we agree with this bias in favor of candidates from underrepresented groups, but in this particular race we believe that the candidates’ factional loyalties are more important than their personal identities. Grant’s candidacy was born from Seattle’s activist left. We’ve seen him get arrested protesting oil-pipeline financing, argue with city bureaucrats at tent-village evictions, and cry recalling the time he found a homeless person’s corpse while volunteering with the One Night Count. Because of his record, we trust him more to put the rights and needs of our most vulnerable neighbors first. For these reasons, we again endorse Jon Grant.

Correction: A previous version of this endorsement misidentified the labor council Mosqueda worked for. She worked for the Washington State Labor Council.