xingkerui could expand on this a little more since he's got a Washington State avatar and NOVA Green could with his Oregon avatar but Clinton +19 is almost certainly a 12 point lead at the worst in Oregon
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).
There are key similarities and significant differences between Oregon and Washington...
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.
For example, the PVI in Washington State actually trended Democrat between '08 and '12 versus, the national average, wherebye Oregon actually trended slightly Republican during the same election cycle.
That being said, Multnomah County Oregon (Portland + Gresham) that accounts for 20% of the state population is a much more Democratic County than Kings County (Seattle+ Eastside and Southside suburbs).
McCain and Romney both managed to garner about 28% of the vote in King County in '08/'12. This "A Rated Poll" appears to indicate that Trump only has about 14% of the total vote at this time, essentially a 50% collapse of what is left of the "base Republican vote".
If we were to extrapolate this to Multnomah County, where both McCain and Romney garnered only 21% of the total vote.
If these polling patterns hold, that would account to only 10% of voters in the largest county in the state.Now, we move onto Washington County, one of the wealthiest counties in the state home to the most diverse ethnic electorate in the state, that used to be a "rock-ribbed Republican" 60-40 Bush Sr back in '88 and is now more like a 60-40 Democrat county (13.3% of '12 electorate). Trump barely won 55% of the vote running unopposed in the primaries, and quite frankly I would not be surprised to see it going Clinton +25 this election cycle.
Let's move downstate....
I posted on several other threads, namely the Oregon Democratic Party thread, regarding the complete destruction of the Hillary '08 versus '16 Primary coalition, where she got destroyed in "downstate" counties against Bernie that overwhelmingly supported her in the '08 Dem Primaries.
My major comments consisted of collapse of the Hillary '08 coalition in downstate in heavily Working Class communities, as well as a significant improvement in middle and upper-middle class Democratic populations in (Jackson, Deschutes, Benton, and Metro-PDX) in that primary.
Despite the Hillbots (You know who you are
) I said the biggest threat to Hillary was not at the hands of a small number of straw-men Bernie-Bros, but rather solid Democrats >35 years who had major concerns regarding the direction of the party, that felt abandoned over the past two decades (Despite overwhelmingly supporting Obama in the '08 GE).
I still envision that Trump might make minor inroads over McCain '08 numbers in parts of Southern Oregon (Josephine. Coos, & Douglas Counties), as well as potentially in certain parts of the Mid-Valley (Linn County), but it does seem that if we use current national numbers, Oregon actually might have a record level of support for a Democratic Presidential candidate potentially even surpassing LBJ in '64....