Seattle voters concerned about inflation, crime and abortion in midterm election

As the closest major city to Vancouver, Seattle shares a number of the same issues. But there’s one that’s uniquely urgent for voters in the United States -- abortion rights.

On the ticket for the midterm election are two senate candidates. Incumbent Democrat Patty Murray has been in office for about 30 years, her Republican challenger, Tiffany Smiley, believes that’s too long.

A campaign as for Smiley accused Murray of not taking action on crime, homelessness and drug addiction.

“Record rapes, carjackings, murders and overdoses plague our communities and victims have where to turn. Who’s to blame? Patty Murray,” one ad says.

CTV News travelled to Seattle to speak with voters about what issues they were most concerned about. Here are some of the responses we got.

Tim Bradley is initially from Wisconsin and moved to Seattle a few months ago. He said his biggest concerns included “people’s rights to vote and to be counted,” referring to some election deniers claiming the 2020 election was stolen.

He also said abortion rights were a “huge issue”, and when asked how high crime was on his radar he responded, “I don't necessarily think it feels a lot worse here than it does in other large cities in the U.S.”

Sue Weinhimer is 89 years old and has lived on the West Coast for 40 years. She believes the Republicans are running on a platform of “regression.”

“I’m frightened for the first time in my life for this country,” she said, adding that Donald Trump was ruining the country.

“He’s a terrible person, he’s a total egomaniac, he’s totally interested in himself,” she said. “He’s just raising havoc.”

John Ludwig and his wife have returned to Seattle after a number of years living abroad. He said his tactic for voting was to “pick the side that looks least likely to continue burning everything down.

Ludwig also listed abortion as one of his major issues, saying he was “flabbergasted, dumbfounded” that it was still a topic of conversation in 2022.

Claire Simmons is 21 years old and said this is the third election she has voted in. When asked about her biggest issue she responded, “We just had Roe v Wade overturned and I’m just like, that’s really upsetting in a lot of ways,” she said. “To me, it’s something that like, at what point are we going to leave that in the past?”