Olympia’s $20 minimum wage measure is failing in early election results
Proposition 1, the initiative to raise Olympia’s minimum wage to $20 and adopt a Workers’ Bill of Rights, is poised to fail, according to preliminary results.
Wednesday’s tally showed 55.9% of voters voting “no,” and 44% voting “yes.” The vote tallies were 6,595 to 5,194.
The Workers’ Bill of Rights included measures around predictive scheduling, tiers for different-sized businesses, the preference to add hours for current part-time workers over hiring, and more. The eight-page document can be found on the city’s website.
Olympia Mayor Dontae Payne and council members Dani Madrone, Kelly Green and Yến Huỳnh endorsed the “No” campaign.
Payne said Tuesday night that the odds were against the Olympia Together campaign against Prop. 1 because there was a lot of organizing in support of the initiative before it was placed on the ballot. He said he’s proud of the campaign for educating and informing the community about all of the nuances that were in the initiative.
“I’m just really proud of Olympia voters for doing the work of really digging in and looking into this before casting their vote,” he said. “And clearly, you know, they really took the time to really learn about all the complexity and then cast a vote.”
He said the hope is that small businesses and nonprofits and their workers can come together in the future to craft an ordinance that works for everyone. He said while they were on different sides of the issue, the “Yes” campaign had some valid points.
“The cost of living is high. It is unaffordable to really be able to live comfortably right now,” Payne said. “And those are things that the City of Olympia and the council, we want to help address some of that as much as we can, but let’s do so as a community.”
He said something should be crafted that’s specifically tailored to Olympia and not influenced by those outside the city. He said the city is committed to doing all it can to lift up those who have the least.
“All people deserve the right to live comfortably and to make a wage that provides for their families, and also be able to know ... when they’re going to work, you know, like the predictive scheduling piece,” he said. “I think there are some valid points to be made, but it’s the nuance that’s important, and so I hope people really do hear us that we are committed to working together as a community, to think about something that that will work for us, and I hope people trust that their city government is going to do just that.”
“Yes” campaign spokesperson Rob Richards said he didn’t have much to say on the preliminary results, and that he was still processing the low turnout after having knocked on the doors of more than 30,000 homes. So far, only 41,123 ballots have been tallied, 19.3% of registered voters countywide.
He said he knows there’s still thousands of ballots to be counted, but there’s a wide margin to make up, and it doesn’t look hopeful.
This story was originally published November 4, 2025 at 8:58 PM.
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