WA- Elway Poll: Clinton +19

[Mallow]

I'm happy to live in such a freedom state!

People claiming that Washington will at least trend toward Trump are making the mistake of assuming that all white voters are trending Republican. That's not the case in the Pacific Northwest. Washington and Oregon have trended Democratic, since nearly all of the population growth has been in the Seattle/Portland areas. Trump is a horrible fit for Washington, and he'll get annihilated west of the Cascades. He'll win most of the ultra conservatives in Eastern WashingtonWestern Idaho, but there's also a sizable Latino population in areas like Yakima, so that could be helping Clinton even more. Even though Obama was probably a slightly better fit for Washington than Hillary, I expect her to win by more, simply because we hate Trump so much here.

I'd say that NOVAGreen could tell us the most about Oregon, but I'd expect most of what I said to be true to an extent there as well, and I'd be stunned if Hillary didn't win by double digits.

Oregon is very similar on all counts, except maybe a lower Hispanic proportion in central Oregon, and a lower percentage of population east of the Cascades (in Oregon, about 13.1% of the population is in counties east of the Cascades, including Hood River County, whereas in Washington, about 20.0% of the population is in counties east of the Cascades).

[Mallow]

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One of the most obvious differences is the proportion of voters concentrated in the largest urban area. In 2012 52% of Washington GE votes were cast in Metro-Seattle-Tacoma (Using a very narrow definition that includes only 3 counties King, Snohomish, and Pierce). One could easily expand Metro Seattle-Tacoma to include Kitsap, Mason, Island, and Thurston.

By Contrast, although Metro-Portland (Excluding Clark County WA) has a huge chunk of total statewide votes, slightly less than 45% of statewide votes were cast in the classic Tri-Counties (Multnomah, Washington, and Clackamas).

Oregon has a much larger population located outside of the major Metro area than Washington State, hence some of the PVI variance over the past few election cycles.

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I would point out that the Seattle-Tacoma MSA includes the three counties you mentioned, but the Portland MSA includes Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas, Columbia, and Yamhill counties in Oregon. The former includes 51% of Washington's population, and the latter 48%, which isn't that big a difference.

Also of note, Lane County does not have a good analog in Washington--it is one of Oregon's more populous counties (the most populous outside the Portland metro area), but is very liberal. The most populous counties in Washington outside of the Seattle area are Spokane County and Clark County, which both consistently vote to the right of the nation. The closest analog to Lane County in Washington is probably Thurston County, but it has a lower population than Lane, and therefore accounts for a much lower percentage of Washington's population than Lane does of Oregon's.

The point I'm making is that the percentage of the population in the "very liberal" Oregon counties (Multnomah, Washington, Lane, Benton, Lincoln, Clatsop, and Hood River) is very close to the percentage in the "very liberal" Washington counties (King, Snohomish, Thurston, Whatcom, Jefferson, and San Juan), at ~48% and ~47%, respectively. I would concede that Oregon has a higher proportion of its population in lean-R territory (~25% in counties that gave Romney between 48% and 53% of the vote in 2012) than Washington (~16%). As for very conservative counties, it's not a very big difference... ~10% in Oregon, and ~8% in Washington.