A new poll by the Northwest Progressive Institute (NPI) tells us what we were all hoping to hear: We have a real mayor’s race this year.

NPI, our local public opinion expert, ran a poll simulating a general election throw down between the two candidates who have raised the most in their campaigns so far: Transit Riders Union General Secretary Katie Wilson (at $256,318) and Mayor Bruce Harrell (at $390,585).

The top line is: in a poll of 522 likely voters, Wilson got 36 percent of the vote, Harrell got 33, and 30 percent remained undecided. I know it looks like Wilson has a solid lead, but technically, the margin of error is 4 percent, so it’s a statistical tie.

But it’s a tie! With two months left in the primary, Wilson is starting to give Harrell a run for his ($390k of) money.

The survey was done in two parts. First, they asked respondents to choose between Wilson and Harrell, and more than half of them (56 percent) said they weren’t sure. Harrell had the benefit of name recognition, with 25 percent, and Wilson got 18. But then NPI gave the undecided respondents another shot, providing excerpts of the candidates’ positions, and links to their campaign websites. After reviewing them, the tables turned. Among the undecideds, 34 percent said they’d vote for Wilson, 15 for Harrell, and 51 percent remained unsure. When combined, we get 36 percent for Wilson, and 33 for Harrell.

Harrell was clearly more recognizable to likely voters. But NPI’s polling also asked about his job performance, and Seattle just isn’t that into Harrell at this point. Only 37 percent of the city approves of his work, and 45 percent disapproves. When respondents were asked why they said they’d vote for Wilson, 10 of them simply said, “She’s not Bruce” or “She’s not Harrell.”

And Seattle has a unique relationship with incumbents. Anywhere else, being an incumbent gives you a substantial leg up. But Seattle tends to speed date our mayors. In the last 25 years, we’ve only given one mayor a second term—Greg Nickels, who only got it because he didn’t have a good challenger.

This poll is very early, and the number of undecideds shows that both candidates have a lot of work to do, and it could still be anyone’s race. “This race looks like it could go in multiple directions right now and could be one of the most exciting of this local election cycle," said NPI founder and executive director Andrew Villeneuve in a statement. 

The filing deadline was only two weeks ago, and while there’s still a lot of campaigning ahead of us, the race is starting to take shape. In a city without political parties, the closest thing we have is two major donor classes: labor and business. And so far, Harrell is sweeping the field. This week, the MLK Labor council, our county’s union of unions, endorsed Harrell. So has the CEO of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, Governor Bob Ferguson, AG Nick Brown, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, among many others.

But Wilson has momentum—and not just based on this poll. She qualified for the democracy voucher program in just five days, and is collecting endorsements from groups like the King County Democrats, the Transit Riders Union (duh), and progressives like former City Councilmember Tammy Morales.