Steffanie Fain and Peter Kwon face off for King County Council
October 24, 2025
By David Gutman
Seattle Times staff reporter
The race for an open seat on the Metropolitan King County Council features a longtime SeaTac City Council member and project manager facing off against a lawyer and president of the Harborview Medical Center board of trustees.
In a campaign that has turned contentious, both candidates — Peter Kwon, the SeaTac council member, and Steffanie Fain, the Harborview board president — cite their experience in explaining why they would be the better choice to represent the South King County district.
“I’ve actually delivered, over 10 years, I’ve delivered. I’ve got the experience,” Kwon said. “My opponent is claiming she can do it, but has never solved any problems.”
Kwon won the six-person August primary, but with just 28% of the vote. Fain squeaked through by just 250 votes to come in second, with 24% of the vote.
Fain highlighted her “regional leadership experience” as what sets her apart.
“Harborview is a $1.7 billion hospital and the board chair, we oversee a really complex budget and capital projects and patient, health care and safety,” she said. “I have years of that health care experience.”
The two are battling for an open seat representing Kent, Renton, SeaTac, Des Moines and Normandy Park. The seat was previously held by Dave Upthegrove, but he stepped down in January after he was elected state Lands commissioner. His appointed replacement, Councilmember De’Sean Quinn, did not seek a full term.
Each side is going negative with mailers that accuse their opponent of hiding their true affiliations.
A mailer from Fain’s campaign highlights that Kwon was ranked as the “best choice” by King County Republicans and was endorsed by a conservative pastor — endorsements Kwon says he did not appreciate.
A mailer from a PAC supporting Kwon says Fain “claims to be a Democrat … but she’s supported by BIG BUSINESS donors.”
The County Council is technically a nonpartisan position. Fain calls herself a “pragmatic Democrat.” Kwon disavows any party affiliation.
Fain praises the county’s lawsuits against the Trump administration, trying to stop the administration from cutting funding to jurisdictions that it disagrees with politically.
“We should continue to do that,” she said. “People are scared, you know, is the National Guard going to come in? What are we going to do? How do we protect ourselves? It can be really overwhelming.”
Kwon has little interest in talking about anything related to the federal government.
“I try to keep my focus on local issues, on issues that I can control,” he said. “The whole federal discussion and everything, it’s, number one, it’s dividing our community, but number two, I think it’s taking focus away from being able to deal with our local issues.”
Kwon, 56, is in the middle of his third four-year term on the SeaTac City Council. Born in South Korea, he moved to New York as a child and to Washington to attend the University of Washington. He is a project manager for the Korean American Institute and previously worked in IT for Boeing and Microsoft.
Ask him about his plans for the County Council, and he’ll talk about his work in SeaTac. He says he wants to bring the same “fiscal discipline” to the county.
He says his first priority on the County Council would be to “get the budget in order.”
Does that mean raising more revenue? Or trimming services? Neither? Both?
“I’m going to refer back to my experience in SeaTac,” he said. When he took office, he said, he asked to see all the invoices the city was paying. He noticed a new HVAC system the city had installed that needed a repair.
“And so I said, well, why is this not on the warranty?” he recalled. “And they said, well, yeah, absolutely it can be replaced on the warranty. So that ended up costing us nothing. That’s an example of the type of oversight.”
Kwon said he supports raising the 1% cap on property tax growth — as county leaders have lobbied for years to do — but “as a last resort.”
Fain, 44, has been on the Harborview board for 11 years, including the past five as president. A lawyer, she is managing partner of Coopersmith Law + Strategy, a law and consulting firm, where she works on health care, governance and employment issues.
She lives in Normandy Park, with her husband, former state Sen. Joe Fain, and two sons.
Fain says she wants “more flexibility” in the county’s homelessness response. She wants more tiny house villages and wants to remove barriers keeping people from getting into shelters or treatment for substance use.
She talks about going on a ride-along with Seattle’s CARE team, the police alternative that responds to some mental health emergency calls. A man they treated had recently bumped his head. After talking with the CARE team for 45 minutes, he agreed to go to a shelter, but the shelter wouldn’t take him, she said, until he got a CT scan. But that meant a trip to Harborview.
“And he declined to do that,” she said. “That was an opportunity to help someone into a shelter and we missed that opportunity.
“We have to do better about really being a little bit more flexible and assessing folks individually,” she said.
Fain said she is “not opposed” to raising the 1% cap on property tax growth, but “is hesitant right now” until she sees how the current county budget process ends up.
Fain has a significant lead in fundraising and in high-profile endorsements. She has raised more than $245,000, compared with about $105,000 for Kwon. Fain’s campaign noted that Kwon recently got a $1,200 maximum donation from Brian Heywood, the hedge fund CEO who has funded conservative initiatives and causes across the state the last few years.
Kwon said he had “no thoughts” on Heywood. “My opponent’s got more than double the amount of money that I have, almost triple,” he said. “So I can use all the help I can get.”
Fain claims the endorsements of all six mayors in the district, County Executive Shannon Braddock, seven of nine current County Council members and Democratic U.S. Reps. Adam Smith and Marilyn Strickland.
Kwon claims the endorsements of Democratic state Rep. Cindy Ryu, Des Moines Mayor Traci Buxton, Tacoma Mayor Victoria Woodards and former Tukwila Mayor Allan Ekberg.
Ballots must be postmarked or placed in a drop box by 8 p.m. on Nov. 4.
Correction: A previous version of this story said Peter Kwon did not seek the endorsement of the King County Republican Party. Kwon completed a candidate survey distributed by the party.
David Gutman: 206-464-2926 or dgutman@seattletimes.com. David Gutman covers local politics and King County government at The Seattle Times, reporting on how leaders and institutions impact the lives of everyday people.
