John Wilson, King County’s assessor and a former chief of staff to King County Executive Ron Sims, is running for King County executive, seeking to lead Washington’s largest county.
Wilson, who has served as assessor since he was first elected in 2015, said his campaign would focus on crime, affordable housing and taxes.
“But the foremost challenge facing the county is we’ve got to do something about crime,” Wilson said in an interview. “And you have too many local officials who don’t even really want to talk about it.”
Wilson, 70, is the second candidate to launch a campaign for county executive, seeking an open seat, with Dow Constantine opting not to run for a fifth term next year.
Metropolitan King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci announced her bid for county executive last week, just as Constantine announced that he would step aside. And Councilmember Girmay Zahilay said he was “strongly considering” a run for county executive.
County executive is a nonpartisan office, but all three are Democrats.