(reverent orchestral music) - I'm Starla Sampaco in the Crosscut KCTS 9 newsroom.

The election of a city attorney in Seattle usually doesn't draw much attention, but this year it has.

12-year incumbent Pete Holmes was defeated in the August primary and the two candidates for the November general election couldn't be more different.

Nicole Thomas-Kennedy is a one-time public defender whose platform is abolitionist, a term she promises is more about building alternatives than tearing down the current justice system.

She questions the practice of charging many misdemeanor cases and has had to defend past tweets, calling police pigs and property destruction a moral imperative.

Ann Davison, meanwhile, has never worked in criminal law, but her private practice includes contract and immigration law.

She previously ran unsuccessfully for City Council and as a Republican for lieutenant governor.

Each team, she has run on the message that Seattle is sliding downhill, the result of an overly discretionary criminal system.

I'm Starla Sampaco.

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