Katie Wilson Gets Money From Her Parents For Childcare And That's Not The Own The Mayor Thinks It Is

Over the weekend, Mayor Bruce Harrell’s campaign sent a text to Seattle voters overblowing a few lines in a KUOW post to frame his progressive challenger Katie Wilson as some kind of overgrown trust-fund kid cosplaying poor while mooching off her parent’s New York money. This morning, Wilson’s campaign clapped back, calling Harrell out of touch for mocking how families help each other scrape by in an expensive city.

Early last week, KUOW posted a profile of Wilson titled “Katie Wilson can barely afford to live in Seattle. That's why she wants to be mayor.” 

The story read: 

“Wilson presents herself as a sensible coalition-builder who runs a small nonprofit – the Transit Riders Union — and has lived a mostly working-class life. A renter and a mother, she runs on issues close to her heart. She speaks the language of struggling people.

But not included in the narrative Wilson tells on the campaign trail is how she affords this expensive city. The answer is simple, and arguably very Seattle: Her parents, professors in New York State, give her money.”

Wilson did not give KUOW an exact figure, but said that her parents send her money “periodically” to help her pay for daughter’s childcare, which runs her $2,200 a month. 

Naturally, Harrell’s campaign, which never misses an opportunity to attack the primary winner, clung to this comment. That Thursday, the campaign sent a press release with the subject line “Katie Wilson is Not Who She Says She Is: Working Families, Renters, Students, Community Leaders, and More Call Out Katie Wilson’s Deception Following KUOW Profile.”

To be clear, Wilson doesn't have a fucking bed frame. This is not someone secretly living in the lap of luxury.

Based on the tongue-in-cheek video they posted Tuesday morning in response to "Momgate," Wilson’s team seems to think their opponent is blowing the story out of proportion. 

“I want to address the very first scandal of my political life,” Wilson said, opening her new video. 

“Now I don’t have years of experience managing scandals like my opponent does, so bear with me,” she continued as headlines from Harrell’s many controversies slid across the screen. 

In the video, Wilson’s mom reads the text Harrell’s campaign sent to Seattle voters over the weekend: “Katie Wilson’s campaign built around working class identity, but parents paid her bills.”

“So is this about Josie? My granddaughter’s childcare?” Wilson’s mom asked. “I mean, doesn’t [Harrell] know childcare is really expensive in Seattle and aren’t families supposed to take care of each other?”

Wilson’s defense against Harrell’s attack is two-fold. The campaign is trying to shrink her parent’s contribution in the narrative, a tacit acknowledgment that some more boot-strappy voters may be put off by her privilege, especially if they believe their fully funding her life. In a message to The Burner, Wilson’s campaign clarified that Wilson has been "independent from her parents throughout her adult life” and her parents started pitching in for childcare when Wilson first enrolled her daughter in paid childcare to give her and her husband more flexibility to campaign. 

But the campaign is also not fully accepting the framing that receiving money from her parents makes her unrepresentative of the working class. As it turns out, it's a pretty common situation. According to a recent report, about 50% of parents are still financially supporting their Gen Z and millennial children. On average, parents who support their adult children financially give them more than $1,400.  In this way, Harrell may think he's exposed her, but the attack may actually help Wilson look even more relatable.

In her video, Wilson called Harrell “out of touch” with working families. She probably could have went harder on him there considering his high income, his $4 million (zestimate lol) mansion in Seward Park, and the ultrawealthy pooling $1.7 million to back his campaign.

Wilson expressed her gratitude to her mom for chipping in and acknowledged that not all families are as fortunate as hers. So, she promised to fight for affordable childcare and housing.

Wilson’s video seems to have diffused the situation for now, but time will tell if Harrell’s team will keep harping on it in the final days before the election. In the New York mayoral race, Zohran Mamdani detractors have pelted him with similar attacks and have continued to manufacture scandal despite the eyerolls they’ve elicited. 

Political consultant Stephen Paolini, who is running the Independent Expenditure support Wilson, thinks Harrell’s team would be wise to drop the negativity all together. 

“Incumbents don’t win re-election by tearing down their opponents,” Paolini told The Burner. “They win by talking about their accomplishments and reminding voters of the material ways they have made their lives better. Sadly that’s hard for [Harrell] because he hasn't accomplished much and hasn’t made life better for everyday people.”