(The Center Square) – Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown is already collecting campaign donations despite not having publicly announced a reelection bid for a second term that will be decided in next year’s 2027 mayoral race.
Brown assumed office in January 2024 after beating incumbent and former Mayor Nadine Woodward in the 2023 General Election. Both candidates raised more than $500,000 each, with Brown winning that race after securing the votes of 36,601 constituents, 51.7% of the turnout, leaving a margin of 2,853.
According to the state Public Disclosure Commission, Brown has already raised a total of $3,186.05 as a candidate for the 2027 mayoral election. To be deemed eligible to run, she must also file her bid with the Secretary of State’s office; however, that SOS candidate filing period doesn’t begin until May 2027.
“I filed with the PDC for the 2027 election,” Brown responded to The Center Square’s interview request in an email on Wednesday evening. “I don’t have any statement to make about the campaign at this time.”
The PDC acts as a campaign finance watchdog and allows contenders to file their candidacy before the SOS filing period begins. The SOS filing period for the 2026 election doesn’t start until next month, so Brown is ahead of the curve and the only mayoral candidate in town who’s filed with the PDC for 2027.
Two years into her first term as mayor, after nearly two decades in the state Legislature and time in other positions, Brown continues to grapple with many of the challenges she faced after taking office in 2024.
Recent data suggest that fewer people are entering the city’s homelessness system than in 2024, but the crisis continues to sit front and center as one of the main issues facing the city. Multi-million-dollar deficits have also persisted throughout the Brown administration, despite recent tax and fee increases.
She has made strides in addressing the homelessness crisis by transitioning the city from congregate shelters to a scattered-site model, but critics question the return on their investment. Her camping ban, which resulted in zero citations and service referrals, also posed a major challenge for the city council, which eventually replaced it before the 2025 election after facing ethics complaints from constituents.
“For the past two years, the city of Spokane has been working diligently to build out a system founded on proven interventions and coordination,” Brown wrote in a news release last month. “We are investing in solutions that work and that is being demonstrated in the positive outcomes we are seeing.”
According to PDC records, Brown filed her candidacy with the campaign finance watchdog only a few months after winning the 2023 election. Candidates often transfer their remaining campaign funds to another PDC candidacy after winning an election, if they plan to run again, as she did in March 2024.
On March 18, 2024, Brown filed records with the PDC, showing that she had transferred $2,636.05 of remaining funds from her 2023 campaign into her 2027 campaign page. Between then and December 31, 2025, Brown spent about $808.90 on “non-itemized expenditures” and digital advertising services.
Small donations started rolling in for Brown this year. On January 28, she filed records showing $175 in donations from three unnamed individuals. PDC guidance states that candidates must identify only the donor’s name and address if the donor’s individual contribution exceeds $100. They are required to list the donor’s occupation and the name and location of their employer for contributions of $250 or more.
Brown also received donations ranging from $25 to $250 last month, bringing her total contributions for the 2027 mayoral race to $3,186.05. The only one required by the PDC to identify the donor and their location was a $250 contribution on March 11 from Hegi Ursula, who lives in Greenport, N.Y.
According to her PDC page, Brown has spent $863.67 so far this year, bringing her total expenses to $1,672.57 between March 2024 and March 2026. The most recent expense was $600 that Brown paid to her treasurer for “accounting, legal, regulatory compliance, etc,” and “non-itemized expenditures.”
Brown’s predecessor did not respond to The Center Square’s voicemails and messages, asking whether Woodward planned to run for office again in 2027. She faced significant financial pressures during the pandemic, leaving Brown with limited fiscal reserves and mounting deficits by the time she took office.
The ballooning homelessness crisis at the time was also a major hurdle for Woodward’s administration.
Tim Archer, who was the third runner-up during the August 2023 primary, told The Center Square that he doesn’t plan on running again at this point. He said whoever runs for mayor next year should focus on addressing property crime rather than spending tax dollars on homelessness diversion resources.
“Spokane needs a law and order mayor,” Archer told The Center Square in an interview on Wednesday.
While the mayoral election is still a year away, Brown appears to be the only person in the race so far.
