Washington state megathread

[Alcon]

Devil's advocate to you non-voters:

The more people who vote in the primary, the more humiliatingly high the turnout will be vs. the caucus system, and the more pressure on the parties to scrap the terrible caucus system.  Voting is going to send more of a signal than not voting.

Plus, fun election results!  Don't you care about fun election results?!

[Alcon]

If any of you actually want to vote and replaced your ballot, you can actually print a ballot online and mail it in.  Just enter your data below and click "My Ballot":

https://weiapplets.sos.wa.gov/MyVote/

Devil's advocate to you non-voters:

The more people who vote in the primary, the more humiliatingly high the turnout will be vs. the caucus system, and the more pressure on the parties to scrap the terrible caucus system.  Voting is going to send more of a signal than not voting.

Plus, fun election results!  Don't you care about fun election results?!

There's only one party in this state that still uses the caucus system, and it's not switching any time soon.

I agree, though. It's so easy to vote in this state, so why not do it?

Eh, I'm not convinced the Democrats will never change.  There were considerable portions of the party moving for it before the disaster of the caucus system this year.  It's all too dependent on internal party nonsense, but the non-representative aspect of the caucus is the single most effective talking point in Democratic circles.  The higher the turnout in the non-binding primary, the stronger that argument gets.

[Alcon]

OK, this is kind of fascinating.  So far, the partisanship of ballots is nearly identical to the 2008 Presidential primary -- actually very slightly more Democratic, 57.5% vs. 56.6% (+0.9%).  That's impressive, considering that the 2008 primary actually counted a little bit on the Democratic side.

However, what's even more impressive is how unevenly distributed the changes are in partisanship since 2008.  Here are the counties, sorted from biggest gain in % Democratic to biggest loss.  This is obviously far from random variation.  (Also, King County will probably get even higher as left-leaning late ballots are counted.)

[to get swing in Atlas terms, double all these numbers]

King   +6.4%
San Juan   +3.9%
Jefferson   +3.8%
Kitsap   +2.2%
Island   +0.7%
Benton   +0.4%
Clark   +0.1%
Snohomish   +0.1%
Clallam   -0.1%
Whatcom   -0.5%
Skagit   -1.0%
Spokane   -1.2%
Chelan   -1.4%
Franklin   -2.1%
Thurston   -2.1%
Skamania   -2.4%
Walla Walla   -3.5%
Whitman   -3.5%
Klickitat   -4.1%
Pierce   -4.4%
Okanogan   -4.9%
Kittitas   -5.1%
Ferry   -5.7%
Pend Oreille   -6.0%
Stevens   -6.0%
Mason   -6.6%
Grant   -7.0%
Columbia   -7.4%
Douglas   -7.6%
Lewis   -7.8%
Wahkiakum   -8.0%
Garfield   -8.1%
Yakima   -8.2%
Adams   -8.6%
Cowlitz   -8.9%
Asotin   -9.2%
Pacific   -11.1%
Grays Harbor   -11.5%
Lincoln   -12.4%

[Alcon]

Seems fairly correlated with Trump's vote share, though not exclusively.

EDIT: R-squared of .38, but Garfield County is a big outlier. Remove it, and the R-squared jumps to .55

I would also guess a strong correlation with income and especially education.  That's what I think seeing Benton up there, for instance.  It also looks like socially liberal areas that aren't upscale (like Jefferson) saw gains.  There is definitely some systemic primary crossover going on vs. 2008.

For instance: I looked back at 2008, and Bainbridge Island was 73.8% Democratic in the primary.  That was with Obama getting his second-highest share of the primary vote of any city in the state.  This year, Bainbridge is 81.0% Democratic.  Plus Kasich got 27.6% there, and I'd bet some of those voters are less than loyal.

The Eastside is probably going to be nasty for Trump.  On the other hand, it looks like working-class white areas with ancestral Democratic voting (the Coast, Kelso-Longview, Clarkston) are exhibiting significant D crossover to Trump.

[Alcon]

King County partisanship


Clinton vs. Sanders (Clinton in blue, Sanders red)

[Alcon]

 That's impressive, considering that the 2008 primary actually counted a little bit on the Democratic side.

It was also a beauty contest.

I remember voting for Ron Paul in that election, only because the Democratic primary was meaningless.

sorry, I wrote that wrong: I meant to say because the Republican primary actually counted this time, so this time it was even more more-relevant than the D primary.  I just inverted when I meant to write, because I'm a dumbass.

[Alcon]

^ Great maps!  And you obviously had more success getting results out of Wahkiakum County than I have...but I've mostly got non-suppressed results out of the rest (just waiting on Whitman), so here they are:

For cities with 25+ voters:

% Clinton
Hunts Point - 90.70%
Yarrow Point - 77.95%
South Prairie - 77.78%
Clyde Hill - 75.22%
Medina - 75.00%
Mercer Island - 73.22%
LaCrosse - 70.83%
Woodway - 70.44%
Beaux Arts Village - 68.75%
Warden - 68.18%

Rich people and some random farm towns with old populations.

% Sanders
Skykomish - 74.36%
Tonasket - 73.27%
Marcus - 69.23%
Index - 68.89%
Springdale - 68.00%
Friday Harbor - 67.43%
Everson - 66.15%
Rockford - 65.71%
Vader - 65.52%
Cheney - 65.25%

A mix of hippies and working-class rural towns with some hippie leanings, plus Cheney (Eastern Washington University).  Everson in Whatcom County's conservative Nooksack Valley is interesting...I'm not sure why it was so pro-Sanders when Lynden barely voted for him.

% Trump
Lyman - 95.74%
Pe Ell - 95.05%
Hamilton - 93.75%
Rock Island - 93.18%
Springdale - 92.86%
South Prairie - 92.45%
Kittitas - 91.14%
Mansfield - 89.39%
Creston - 89.19%
Pateros - 88.57%

A bunch of small, working-class towns.  Almost all are super-white.  Most of the more Hispanic towns weren't this pro-Trump, probably because of the few Hispanic Republicans.

% Kasich
Beaux Arts Village - 37.50%
Clyde Hill - 28.65%
Bainbridge Island - 27.24%
Medina - 26.38%
Mercer Island - 25.14%
Yarrow Point - 25.00%
Langley - 23.38%
Ruston - 22.73%
Seattle - 22.38%
Hunts Point - 22.06%

Rich/educated voters and those living around a lot of liberals.

Cruz
Prescott - 22.45%
Everson - 20.91%
Pomeroy - 20.80%
Garfield - 20.00%
Hartline - 19.44%
Latah - 19.44%
Colton - 19.23%
Royal City - 18.92%
Sumas - 18.75%
Bingen - 18.60%

I guess these places all seem like they'd have a lot of conservative religious voters.  Otherwise, I'm not sure how to distinguish these areas from the above list.  Cruz also did really well on military bases.

Carson
Almost certainly all statistical noise in very small towns, except in College Place (12.83%), which has a Seventh-Day Adventist college.

% Democratic
Nespelem - 93.10%
Mabton - 89.57%
Seattle - 87.62%
Mattawa - 86.96%
Port Townsend - 85.96%
Wapato - 85.14%
Langley - 85.11%
Bainbridge Island - 80.03%
Lake Forest Park - 77.91%
Shoreline - 76.65%

Seattle and its inner suburbs, plus hippie towns, Hispanics, and Native Americans.

% Republican
Krupp - 7.96%
Hartline - 16.28%
Coulee City - 19.53%
Washtucna - 20.27%
Mansfield - 21.43%
Prescott - 22.22%
St. John - 22.54%
Starbuck - 23.08%
Odessa - 23.41%
Lynden - 23.45%

Small towns, mostly agriculture-dependent.  #1 Krupp is the smallest town in the state, in fact.

[Alcon]

Unfortunately I'm on a dumb Linux computer so I can't properly make maps, but I'm processing the final precinct results and have every county but King (will have today) and Wahkiakum (idk they're terrible).

I combined party vote for U.S. Senate and Governor and lumped obvious minor-party candidates with who they'd likely flow to (so the socialist candidate goes to the Ds).

U.S. Senate
The overall U.S. Senate result is 59.49% D, 36.13% R (D+23.36%).

Ds win all the Obama counties plus Whitman (53-41), Wahkiakum (52-43), Spokane (51-43), Walla Walla (49-45), Okanogan (48-46), Skamania (48-47), and Asotin (48-47).  

Murray has long had special appeal to working-class voters outside the Metro, but her results here are a little weird.  The Skamania result is weak, and neighboring Klickitat voted R (46-49) despite being an Obama 2008 county.  This is a strange result, especially while Asotin votes D and Pend Oreille is less Republican (45-47).  Both those counties are even more conservative and working-class than Klickitat, and it's been much longer since either voted D.  I'm not going to overthink this, since Inslee's performance in Klickitat and Skamania is more normal.

Beyond that, the biggest news is that the GOP is going for a modern record low in King County, which is 73-24 D in final returns.

As in the Presidential Preference Primary, the most GOP county is again Lincoln (35-59)...but not a single R>60 county.  (And the only other D<40 counties were Adams, Douglas, Grant, Lewis, and Stevens.)

Outside of King, top Democratic cities are Port Townsend (85-11), Langley (85-12), Mabton (84-13), and Bainbridge Island (81-17).  Port Townsend even has a 3.8% Republican precinct.

Governor
The overall Governor result is 55.31% D, 42.75% R (D+12.56%).

Inslee took all of Obama's 2012 counties, minus Cowlitz (47-50) and a really embarrassing showing in Mason (46-52).  The strong margins for Democrats this year didn't come from working-class white counties.

Inslee's margin was driven by a huge victory in King, 69-29.  This isn't far from Obama's margins, and is a crazy high number for a primary.  King County just slaughtered statewide Republicans this year.

Again, our most GOP county is Lincoln (27-71).

Our most Democratic cities outside of King are basically the same: Langley (85-15), Port Townsend (84-15), Mabton (84-16), Bainbridge Island (79-20), and Wapato (78-20).

A pretty telling result for the state of the GOP in educated suburbs: the Democrats lead in the GOP-leaning towns of Camas (51-47), Ridgefield (49-49), and Woodway (51-48).  All three voted for Romney last time.  There is some chance the Democrats will even lead this race in Medina when the abstract comes out tonight.  At minimum, it will be close.  My guess is this is more about the toxicity of the GOP national brand in these areas than it is about Inslee.

[interesting blip: the City of Walla Walla swung hard Dem this year, voting 57-37 D for Senate and 50-48 D for Governor.  This is weird, since I believe it's a Romney and McCain town.  Maybe primary turnout dynamics?  Seems like an area where the general-only voters might be more R.]

Attorney General
Just think it's funny that the Libertarian candidate managed to pull 49.81% in Stevens County.

While it's not obvious in King County (83-17), I get the impression that Ferguson may have irritated some rural hippies?  It's a small number of votes, but he was actually the lowest-performing Democrat in and around Index, the super-liberal area of Stevens Pass.

Unsurprisingly, the only non-tiny place the Libertarian won was Lynden (48-52).

[Alcon]

Unfortunately I'm on a dumb Linux computer so I can't properly make maps, but I'm processing the final precinct results and have every county but King (will have today) and Wahkiakum (idk they're terrible).

Don't worry; I'm already on it.

!

[Alcon]

Beautiful as always, RI.

lol @ Gigi Ferguson handily winning the Evergreen campus.  I wonder what that's about?  It's too many votes to just be random chance, and Ferguson even mentioned "family values" in her voters' statement.   Plus I thought Heck was an alum.

[Alcon]

lol @ Gigi Ferguson handily winning the Evergreen campus.  I wonder what that's about?  It's too many votes to just be random chance, and Ferguson even mentioned "family values" in her voters' statement.   Plus I thought Heck was an alum.

Ferguson's also an Evergreen alum. Her voter statement is very activist-y and progressive; I'm not seeing any mention of "family values" specifically. Plus she's a black woman running against three white men.

Funnily enough, Wyman only got 1.86% at Evergreen which is the worst of any of the major GOP candidates despite her being by far the strongest of any GOP candidate in Thurston County.

Ahh, duh, I was looking at her 2014 pamphlet.  Yeah, her 2016 statement is quite the lefty check-list.

It looks like the Republican candidate for CPL actually fell under 10% In Seattle: D 88.20%, R 9.34%, L 2.46%.  That may be a first for a reasonably credible Republican candidate?  Considering he got 37.95% statewide, it's also a pretty good indicator that Trump may fall below that threshold too.

[Alcon]

That McCarthy/Sprung division in King County is kind of awesome.  I haven't seen something quite like that before.

[Alcon]

The legislative map could be pretty crazy, though.  There are so many Seattle-area LDs that are growing above state average, and not many growing far enough below state average to "absorb" those new registrants from neighboring high-growth areas.  There could be some fun, weird shifting.

[Alcon]

What is the status of write-ins?  If I write-in Marko Liias for State Treasurer, would that get counted?  (Is there a prominent, capable candidate accepting write-ins for that office?)

It would get tabulated by the automated system, and show up on the election reports, but on a technical level it's a "rejected" write-in.  There's a Bernie guy named Eric Miller running as a Democratic write-in.  That's about all I know.

[Alcon]

Why did you vote no on I-1501?

It's basically a move by SEIU to exclude their home caregivers from public information requests that conservatives (the Freedom Foundation) have been using to contact the caregivers and let them know they don't have to be in SEIU.  This would be a fairly arbitrary exemption from public disclosure; others who are paid by the state for professional services are subject to disclosure laws.  It's kind of rare to see the Seattle Times, Stranger and Seattle Weekly all land on the same side of an issue with the same reasoning, but that's why they all endorsed No.

[Alcon]

Ds hold the House and win back the Senate, though it'll be close. Trump is just too toxic and there really aren't any competitive state-wide races to bring out people to vote.

Here's a good overview from Crosscut on the tossup races. They don't actually give any predictions, but they do identify the competitive districts: http://features.crosscut.com/washington-state-districts-control-olympia-legislature-election-2016

Also: 135k ballots have been returned so far, or 3.8% of registered voters. Any idea why Island County has already a 15.9% return rate?

I'm guessing some variation may relate to when ballots were mailed...but Island mailed on the last possible day.  And of all counties, I can't think of a reason that Island and Skagit would be the top two.

Looking within King County, Seattle is outpacing the county (4.2% vs. 3.8%), with especially strong results in the 43rd LD (5.0%) and the 36th (4.7%).  Maybe some of that is high performance because of the Jayapal/Walkinshaw race in the 7th CD, but CD7 is only at 4.1% overall, and both the 11th LD and 37th LD -- which are in Adam Smith's 9th CD -- are outpacing the 34th LD, which is mostly in the 7th CD.  Also, looking within Seattle, Capitol Hill and similar neighborhoods are going strong.  However, the two weakest neighborhoods -- Lakewood and Seward Park -- are high-turnout areas with nearly no votes cast, which makes me wonder whether postal delivery schedules aren't skewing things.

Basically, there's a TONNNN of noise in this data, but it's consistent with higher Democratic enthusiasm.

[Alcon]

Here's an interesting pattern in the turnout results so far, for the 25 counties where I have matchbacks:

* 4.4% of voters who didn't vote in the Presidential Primary have returned ballots

* 11.6% of Republican voters from the Primary have returned ballots

* 15.0% (!) of Democratic voters from the Primary have returned ballots

Obviously, that won't hold up, but that's a 64%-36% D turnout split among Presidential Primary voters in the General so far, when the Presidential Primary was only 58%-42% D.  That seems like a significant early enthusiasm gap to me, and it holds up across counties.

Made a trip into Port Townsend (Jefferson County) today. Still as dark blue as ever from the looks of things. Saw more signs for Hillary Franz than I did Trump.

I think there's a distinct possibility Trump may fall under 15% in Port Townsend.  Jefferson County will probably be pretty nasty to him in general.  He's also a bad candidate for Port Ludlow, which is a high-income, educated area (47% with a bachelor's degree and 24% with a graduate degree -- especially impressive when the median age is 66) and a big source of GOP votes in the county.

Beyond Brinnon, I don't think there's a part of Jefferson County that's any good for him.

[Alcon]

I voted yesterday:

Most of my ballot:

I-1433: Yes
I-1464: Yes
I-1491: Yes
I-1501: No
I-732: Yes
I-735: Yes

US Senator: Patty Murray
US Representative: Brady Walkinshaw (my hardest decision by far)
Governor: Jay Inslee
Lt Governor: Cyrus Habib
Secretary of State: Tina Podlodowski
Treasurer: Duane Davidson (only R)
Auditor: Pat McCarthy
Attorney General: Bob Ferguson
CPL: Hillary Franz
SPI: Chris Reykdal
Insurance Comm: Mike Kreidler

State Rep: Jessyn Farrell and Gerry Pollett

Supreme Court: Yu, Madsen, Wiggins

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY: Yes on Proposition 1 aka ST3.
-----

Also, voting up to 432,735 or 10.2%, but I don't think King County numbers updated?

Nope.  King County posts at 8 PM every weeknight

[Alcon]

Republicans have gained since, but Litzow's district was D+44 on Election Night.  Absolute shellacking in the Seattle suburbs this year.  There's a <10% Republican precinct in Redmond.  Hunts Point was a Clinton lead.

Seattle itself was 88.07%-8.10% Clinton (!).  Even Laurelhurst was under 10% Trump in early returns.  Broadmoor Country Club, the city's last remaining Republican bastion, was voting 67-26% Clinton.

It's amazing to think there are counties in the Midwest with 40-point swings toward Trump, all while he loses his crap in places like the Eastside.

[Alcon]

The current Presidential map

[Alcon]

Alcon, I'm excited for your or realisticidealist's maps.

Some early observations: I'm surprised Port Orchard and Woodway voted for Trump. Also, I don't think Obama ever did as well as Clinton around Gig Harbor/Pierce County part of the Kitsap Peninsula.

It's hard to tell, but did Clinton manage to carry Monroe?

Clinton carried the second Woodway precinct in a landslide...she just seems to have gotten really unlucky in the southern one.  Woodway was 54-37 Clinton overall.

Monroe was 44-43 Clinton.  There's more ballots to be counted, but she should narrowly carry it.

Port Orchard is interesting.  The new subdivisions voted Trump pretty solidly, while the older part of town swung toward him.  It would have been a solider Trump win, but he only tied the normally-GOP McCormick Woods, the huge golf course development that was annexed a few years back.  Kitsap County would have swung Trump by a few points, but he totally lost his crap in the north end of the county.  Bainbridge Island fell from 23% Romney to 14% Trump.

And, yeah, Clinton beat Obama's margins around Gig Harbor.  The Key Peninsula (the landform to the west of the Gig Harbor Peninsula) swung a good bit toward Trump, though.  Not a surprise.  That's a reflection of the socioeconomics of the area.  Rural Gig Harbor has a lot of affluent commuters, while the Key Peninsula has a lot of folks in trailers and the like.

[Alcon]

I've been following late returns and they've definitely been less pro-Clinton than the election day vote, even in King County. That's a change from the norm, isn't it?

Yes, especially in King County, where late turns usually veer very Democratic.  Early ballot returns this year were way Democratic-skewed, and it looks like that's showing up in the results.

[Alcon]

Clark County just unexpectedly flipped back to Clinton.

Does anyone have any inclination why Whitman County's turnout is down over 50% from 2012? It's not like the population's declined.

Pullman turnout looks absolutely terrible, which is a big part of why the county is even close right now.  But above that, their Auditor's department is also terrible.  They report as only 72% counted.

[Alcon]

Clark County just unexpectedly flipped back to Clinton.

Does anyone have any inclination why Whitman County's turnout is down over 50% from 2012? It's not like the population's declined.

Pullman turnout looks absolutely terrible, which is a big part of why the county is even close right now.  But above that, their Auditor's department is also terrible.  They report as only 72% counted.

If Pullman turnout is low, why did Whitman go blue this year after being a Romney county?

Not sure about the write-in explanation...Whitman isn't reporting an unusual number of those.  The biggest factor is that Pullman is actually a pretty college-educated city even outside of its university population, and Trump took it on the chin there.  Obama won by 28 points in 2012; this year, Clinton is winning by at least 42.  And turnout wasn't that bad outside of the WSU campus (should have clarified).  Pullman's vote total should fall from 8,627 last time to just over 8,000 this time.  The county is overall on track to cast more votes, though, and that will limit Clinton's margin of victory despite the impressive Pullman swing, because Pullman will be a lower % of the county vote, and Trump did just fine in places like Colfax.

(Fast math, hopefully I didn't miss something)

[Alcon]

Thanks realistic!  Interesting stuff.