IIRC Washington tried to switch to a primary and the DNC were the ones who got in the way - hence the beauty contest.
The Washington presidential primary was created by the initiative. At the time, Washington was still voting mostly in person. Washington voters DO NOT like having to publicly reveal their partisan affiliation. But the national parties require it. With a separate presidential primary, voters could grudgingly ask for a party ballot.
Under vote by mail, voters must complete a party affiliation form when they return their presidential ballot. They don't have to do that for other elections. One reason turnout was low is that voters did not want to complete that form, particularly as they saw the contests already having been decided.
In 2004 and 2012 the presidential primary was suspended. And in other years, the Washington Democratic Party ignored the results. So voters had another reason not to participate - not only did they have to sign a form, the Democratic party would still go ahead and dump the ballots in Puget Sound.
In 2015, the odd couple, SOS Kim Wyman and Senator Pam Roach, proposed a bill that would change the primary to March, and require at least one delegate be chosen based on the primary results. If both parties agreed, then party affiliation would be required, and both parties could even devise their own affiliation form. If both parties did not agree to binding, then the presidential primary would be a pure beauty contest with no party affiliation required.
The bill passed the Republican-controlled senate, but hung up in the Democratic-controlled House. At the committee hearing, a couple of Democratic Party officials testified (they appeared to either be longshoremen or from the teacher's union). They claimed that caucuses were more representative of the party workers, and besides the DNC wouldn't let them split their allocation of delegates between the caucuses and primary.
IOW, the DNC won't let us do what we don't want do.
The current presidential primary permits the primary date to be changed. But it has to be approved by a committee composed of the SOS, 2 legislators from each party, and 2 party officials from each party. Any change requires supermajority approval.
SOS Wyman and the Republicans voted yes to a March date. The Democrats voted nyet, so the primary date remained in May.
