Council President Sara Nelson Is Advertising Her Campaign On Fox News

Council President Sara Nelson is desperately trying to appear tough-on-Trump after her pathetic performance in the recent primary election, but she’s still trying to win over his sycophants by airing campaign ads on far-right news stations Fox News and Newsmax. 

Nelson’s campaign basically scoffed when The Burner asked for comment about the ads. But her critics argue the ad placement shows Nelson’s campaign sees viewers of far-right, conspiracy theory laden broadcast brainrot as an important part of her re-election strategy, even as she disingeniously paints herself as the candidate to stand up to President Donald Trump. 

On Oct. 13, the consulting firm representing Nelson, Progressive Strategies NW, paid a little more than $42,000 for cable campaign ads airing on 15 different channels through early November. Consultants buy ads one station at a time, so the decisions to run her campaign ad on normie channels such as HGTV and CNN, and extremist channels such as FOX News and Newsmax, were all deliberate. 

Nelson’s campaign doesn’t see the issue.

“We’ve got a whole city of voters to reach so we’re running ads across many platforms — that’s pretty much Campaigning 101,” Nelson’s team boldly explained as a campaign that lost by more than 20 points in the primary.

Not to tell them how to do their job, but the winning campaign has not spent money trying to reach Republican and far-right voters. 

Nelson’s competitor, Dionne Foster, does not list the channels where her ads appear on her PDC filings (as Nelson’s campaign pointed out in their email), but a representative from Comcast provided The Burner with the list of networks: CNN, the Discovery Channel, ESPN, Food Network, FOX Sports 1, Hallmark Channel, HGTV, MSNBC, NFL Network, TBS, and TruTV. For clarity, FOX Sports airs games, sports news, and analysis. 

Unlike Nelson, Foster’s team clearly does not think Foster’s progressive campaign can scrape votes out of a FOX News audience. 

“Sara Nelson advertising on Fox News betrays that she believes that the only way to save her failing campaign is to court right-wing Republicans watching Sean Hannity,” said Stephen Paolini, the political consultant running the Independent Expenditure fighting to replace her with progressive challenger Dionne Foster. 

If Nelson’s looking to score Republican votes, FOX News is the place to be! According to Pew Research Center, the average FOX News viewer is further to the right than the average U.S. adult. The source is trusted by 56% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents and viewed regularly by 57%, making it the most trusted and watched news source for conservatives by far, according to Pew Research Center. By contrast, 64% of Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents distrust FOX News. And Newsmax caters even further to the right. 

“Honestly, I can't fault her,” Paolini continued. “After losing by [more than 20] points in the primary, it's clear Nelson's scare tactics and lies haven't worked on Democrats, so why not give it a shot with Republicans. This move is cynical and sadly just more of the same from a council president that has always had more in common with Fox News viewers than the progressives she claims she represents.”

The move undercuts Nelson’s halfhearted effort to rebrand herself as progressive. Nelson joined the City Council in 2021, riding on the coat tails of Mayor Bruce Harrell and blabbering about how far-left whackos had run Seattle into the ground. For her first two years, she was little more than a pesky concern-troll on the dais, but then a business-backed backlash election in 2023 gave Nelson a conservative majority that elected her Council President. 

Obviously Nelson earned a fairly conservative reputation in her tenure and it has not served her well in her reelection bid. After her spectacular defeat in the primary, Nelson got caught on tape musing about a new strategy playing up “sort of anti-Trump rhetoric, or acknowledge that we’re under attack, or whatever.” Buying ads to splice up FOX News’s 24/7 fascist propaganda doesn’t exactly scream “we’re under attack,” but it does scream “or, whatever!” 

As Foster put it: “If you’re paying Fox News to boost your Seattle campaign, you’re not standing up to Trumpism — you’re funding the bullhorn.”