When Girmay Zahilay arrived in Seattle as a 2-year-old refugee, his family lived in public housing and homeless shelters. He was born in a Sudanese refugee camp to Ethiopian parents fleeing civil war. Now, 35 years later, Zahilay is leading the charge to fund affordable housing in King County for working class families to the tune of more than $1 billion.

As chair of the King County Council’s powerful Budget and Fiscal Management Committee, he holds the purse strings to the entire county budget, including housing initiatives.

In 2024 he successfully introduced a plan to create a $1 billion Regional Workforce Housing Initiative. That’s a long way to come for the “skinny kid with a funny name” (to echo the phrase coined by President Barack Obama to describe himself), and to whom Zahilay is often compared.

As budget chair, Zahilay is also implementing the $1.2 billion property tax levy to build mental health residential treatment centers across King County. Voters approved the plan in 2023.

“All of the policies that we care about, all the values we care about are effectuated through the budget. If we don’t have dollars attached to the things we care about, they don’t exist anymore,” Zahilay says of his progressive budget. “We want to make sure we fund affordable homes for everyone. We want to fund mental health. We want high quality, reliable transportation. We support safety against gun violence.”

Zahilay’s supporters say he tempers his ambitions with modesty, active listening, and the ability to compromise.

“He has this incredible humility,” says Democratic activist and former U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein Suzi LeVine. “And what I appreciate about him is that it’s actually hard to get him to talk about himself. What he wants to talk about is the community. He always puts the community first and community leaders first. He wants to tell others’ stories. As a politician running for office, sometimes you have to tell your story. What I love is he actually elevates community leaders and community members to illustrate his story.”

His diplomacy was key to passing the Regional Workforce Housing Initiative, bringing together the public sector, non-profits, for-profits, labor unions, and residents to support it.

“I want us to partner with anyone possible if it means we can build homes for essential workers,” Zahilay says. “It’s amazing to see the coalition we have been able to build. I think it begins with relationships. You have to talk to the people who are most impacted. You have to get a sense of what would work for them. I am able to target specifically the people who are more impacted.”

Many progressive voters are also turning to lawmakers like Zahilay for leadership over concerns from what they anticipate will be a draconian White House. “It is personal for me,” Zahilay says of his advocacy against a White House with an anti-pluralistic history. “I don’t think (they) want my story to be part of the American story. I am a son of refugees. We were able to get affordable public housing, go to great public schools. (They) don’t want that to be part of the American story.”

Zahilay remains ambitious, if grounded. He is a leading candidate to replace outgoing King County Executive Dow Constantine, who will be retiring after three terms at the end of 2025, making Constantine the longest serving King County executive ever.

“That job is bigger than I can even imagine,” Zahilay says. “One thing at a time. It will be a tough enough hill to climb to win that election. It is also just a bigger platform than I could hope for in the work that I want to do.”

As a naturalized citizen, he is not eligible to run for president. That is about the only limit to his ambitions