Who Amazon Employees Are Supporting In 2019 Seattle Council Race

SEATTLE, WA — Amazon's hefty corporate contributions to candidates in the 2019 Seattle City Council race are well-known, but the company's employees are also diving into the election to the benefit of a handful of candidates.

According to campaign finance filings, individual Amazon employees — meaning donor who list their employer as Amazon — have given 38 times to District 3 Kshama Sawant challenger Egan Orion and 21 times to District 5 incumbent Councilwoman Debora Juarez. Logan Bowers, a District 3 candidate, got 13 donations. District 1 candidate Phillip Tavel got 12.

After that, the number of donations per candidate drops off. The next two candidates with the most donations are District 4 candidate Shaun Scott (7) and Sawant (6) — both openly unfriendly to Amazon. Sawant has called Amazon a "bully" for opposing the head tax. In the Patch candidate questionnaire, Scott said he opposed Amazon's "corporate oligarchy."

Twenty-nine candidates have received between zero and three donations from Amazon employees. The average number of donations across the 41 candidates we looked at was 3.75.

Two of the top four recipients of Amazon employee donations have also benefited from Amazon corporate cash.

Amazon gave a $250,000 corporate donation to the Seattle Chamber of Commerce Civic Alliance for a Sound Economy (CASE) political action committee this year. So far, CASE has given about $95,000 to Orion and $65,000 to Tavel. Bowers and Juarez had not received any donations from CASE as of July 14.

Many of the candidates attracted donations from rank-and-file Amazon employees. Orion, however, got attention from some top executives, including vice president Jay Carney, a former White House press secretary, and recently departed state representative Guy Palumbo, now an Amazon lobbyist.

Here's the full breakdown of donations per candidate. These totals are through July 14 and includes only the candidates who have received more than $10,000 in donations so far.

Egan Orion, D3 — 38 donations, $9,950
Debora Juarez, D5-I — 21 donations, $5,250
Logan Bowers, D3 — 13 donations, $1,650
Phillip Tavel, D1 — 12 donations, $3,000
Shaun Scott, D4 — 7 donations, $1,195
Kshama Sawant, D3-I — 6 donations, $1,585
Brendan Kolding, D1 — 5 donations, $550
Alex Pedersen, D4 — 4 donations, $900
Ari Hoffman, D2 — 4 donations, $900
Jay Fathi, D6 — 4 donations, $550
Andrew Lewis, D5 — 3 donations, $600
Jason Williams, D7 — 3 donations, $350
Cathy Tuttle, D4 — 3 donations, $380
Don Harper, D7 — 3 donations, $750
Ami Nguyen, D3 — 2 donations, $200
Dan Strauss, D6 — 2 donations, $125
Heidi Wills, D6 — 2 donations, $200
Sergio Garcia, D6 — 2 donations, $250
Zachary DeWolf, D3 — 2 donations, $350
John Lombard, D5 — 2 donations, $250
Phyllis Porter, D2 — 2 donations, $280
Sasha Anderson, D4 — 2 donations,$300
Ann D. Sattler, D5 — 2 donations,$375
Tammy Morales, D2 — 1 donation, $100
Pat Murakami, D3 — 1 donation, $100
Mark Solomon, D2 — 1 donation, $100
Heidi Stuber, D4 — 1 donation, $250
Terry Rice, D6 — 1 donation, $100
Melissa Hall, D6 — 1 donation, $340

Zero donations: Emily Myers (D4), Lisa Herbold (D1-I), Jim Pugel (D7), Michael George (D7), Christopher Peguero (D2), Jon Lisbin (D6), Daniela Lipscomb-Eng (D7), Joshua Newman (D4), Ed Pottharst (D6), Kate Martin (D6), James Donaldson (D7)