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It's time to vote! And if you're staring at your ballot, wondering what it all means, let us help you make it make sense with The Stranger Election Control Board's 2026 General Election Endorsements!

As we wrote in this intro to the general election's endorsements, the Stranger Election Control Board took some flak in the primary. We heard many fanciful rumors about our bosses stopping the presses to replace our opinions with theirs. But that didn’t happen.

Our staff has a clause in our union contract to prevent interference in endorsements, and allowing the business side of the paper to interfere with editorial direction is a big ethical no-no in our profession that would’ve led several of us to resign in protest.

Though the SECB is leftist, progressive, and kind of annoying, we are not yes-men for any candidate who occupies the leftmost lane.

We joke that we handpick candidates, but The Stranger is not a political machine. We are not interested in performing politics or propaganda. We are an independent newspaper that informs our progressive readers which candidates most align with their political goals.

Here, we explain our picks for every race on the ballot in King County. There's also a longer version of this intro, if you want to hear more about our process.) Sometimes people are happy with us, sometimes they are very angry. That’s politics. www.thestranger.com/news/the-str...