According to recent polling by the Party of the Future, a project of Friends of Seattle, next year's city council elections are wide open.

In general, voters have no strong positive or negative opinions of the five city council members who are up for reelection next year. Although a majority of voters viewed Jean Godden either positively or negatively, the majority viewed the remaining four council members as either "neutral" or "not sure." In the case of Bruce Harrell, nearly 82 percent had no opinion, and only Sally Clark had favorable ratings above 30 percent.

The upshot: The city council has a year or so to define themselves in voters' minds. The biggest issue right now, of course, is the deep-bore tunnel—which all five members who are up for reelection support. A strong challenger who ran hard on that issue would have a good shot at unseating any of the sitting council members—particularly those who, like Godden, have weak favorable ratings to begin with.

Here are the complete numbers:

Bruce Harrell
Very or somewhat favorable: 10.3%
Somewhat or very unfavorable : 7.9%
Neutral or not sure: 81.7%

Sally Clark
Very Favorable or somewhat favorable: 30.1%
Somewhat or very Unfavorable: 12.3%
Neutral or not Sure: 57.5%

Tom Rasmussen
Very Favorable or somewhat Favorable: 28.3%
Somewhat or very Unfavorable: 11.2%
Neutral or not Sure: 60.5%

Jean Godden
Very favorable or somewhat favorable: 27.6%
Somewhat or very Unfavorable: 27%
Neutral or not sure: 45.3%

Tim Burgess
Very favorable or somewhat favorable: 25.6%
Somewhat or very unfavorable: 15.5%
Neutral or not sure: 58.8%