Washington 2020: The Calm Before the Drizzle

[Crumpets]

Current ballot return rates by county:

https://twitter.com/Evan_SCN/status/1290326805530816512

[Crumpets]

Unfortunately, The Stranger continues to have an absurd amount of sway in Seattle.  They probably have the most power-relative-to-quality ratio of any publication in the United States.

They have a firm grip on 95% of the 18-35 population here as well as all the aging socialists, potheads and creative types.  Your only alternative is the Seattle Times, which requires you to take life seriously, or a ragtag collection of right-leaning outlets that nobody really takes seriously except for the small Republican pockets in Magnolia and Madison.

And what they do with that grip is simply endorse the most extreme candidate in every race and let a bunch of stoners who never went to J-school write Buzzfeed-style endorsement blurbs.  It's incredibly immature but that's how politics is done in this city.

In Magnolia we don't have Republicans like in your neighborhood... In Magnolia we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have this.

[Crumpets]

Initial governor results (I'm not typing up all the candidates):

Inslee (D) - 44.65%
Culp (R) - 22.84%
Freed (R) - 8.21%
Eyman (R) - 7.63%
Garcia (R) - 5.05%
Fortunato (R) - 3.34%

[Roll Roons]

https://results.vote.wa.gov/results/current/StateExecutive-All.html

In terms of other row offices, Wyman is leading for SoS, and the Democrat is leading for Treasurer.

[cwt]

Looks like Lt. Gov. will be a two-Democrat race.

First ever in a statewide race here since switching to the top-two primary, if I'm not mistaken.  

Also, the two moderate/traditional Republican gubernatorial candidates did abysmally. WA GOP continues to fade into irrelevancy.

[Crumpets]

Looks like Lt. Gov. will be a two-Democrat race.

First ever in a statewide race here since switching to the top-two primary, if I'm not mistaken. 

Everything else aside, that should lead to an interesting county map in the general, unless one of them runs away with it.

[Crumpets]

Here's the current "turnout" map by county. I put "turnout" in quotes, since more accurately it's a map of current counted ballots as a percent of total registered voters by county and these numbers will change overtime as more ballot dumps come in.

[Xing]

Davidson is down 8 so far, and I don’t imagine that will get better for him as more votes come in. Confirms that he’s pretty much toast. Wyman is up 5.5%, will be interesting to see how that changes over the next few days.

[MAPZZ]

Surprised at Inslee's big numbers in Island, Skagit, and Clallam counties and his relatively weak numbers in Pierce.

[Left Wing]

Will Heck or Liias win the Culp vote?

[Continential]

Looks like Lt. Gov. will be a two-Democrat race.

First ever in a statewide race here since switching to the top-two primary, if I'm not mistaken.  

Also, the two moderate/traditional Republican gubernatorial candidates did abysmally. WA GOP continues to fade into irrelevancy.

Do you think that the Stranger's endorsement of Liias pushed him through?

[Left Wing]

Joseph Brumbles underperformed by a lot

[Crumpets]

Looks like Lt. Gov. will be a two-Democrat race.

First ever in a statewide race here since switching to the top-two primary, if I'm not mistaken.  

Also, the two moderate/traditional Republican gubernatorial candidates did abysmally. WA GOP continues to fade into irrelevancy.

Do you think that the Stranger's endorsement of Liias pushed him through?

It's possible, but I think Habib's endorsement also played a big part. The Stranger is definitely influential in Seattle races, but much less so in statewide races.

[Xing]

Will Heck or Liias win the Culp vote?

My guess would be Heck.

[Continential]

For the Washington posters, who are you hoping to win, Liias or Heck?

[Left Wing]

For the Washington posters, who are you hoping to win, Liias or Heck?

Heck. He is more experienced and I agree with him on the issues more. Liias doesn’t seem ready to be governor.

[Crumpets]

Here are some maps from the current results. There are a couple things that strike me so far:
1) The Democrats are now consistently winning both King and Jefferson with 70+% of the vote with the obvious exception of the Secretary of State race.
2) The SoS and Treasurer races are almost identical in Eastern Washington. All of the difference between the two comes from the Puget Sound area.
3) Cowlitz County now seems to be a thoroughly (non-Atlas) red county. Grays Harbor and Pacific still seem winnable for a Democrat under the right circumstances, but Cowlitz looks pretty much gone.
4) Liias managed to make the runoff without winning a single county.

[Seattle]

There's probably between 700k-1000k ballots left to be counted, so my thinking may be premature, but this primary's composition does not ring to me like a Biden +30 result.

[Crumpets]

For the Washington posters, who are you hoping to win, Liias or Heck?

I'm undecided as of now. I voted for Liias in the primary because it was pretty clear Heck would make the general and I was hoping to have a D vs. D general. Maybe risky, but hey, it paid off.

[MAPZZ]

For the Washington posters, who are you hoping to win, Liias or Heck?

Heck has stated that in the event Inslee is appointed to the Biden cabinet and the Lt. Gov steps in, he will act as a seat-filler and not run for re-election. Liiaas has good policy positions, but IMO he's not a very good politician and would probably be a very meh governor, possibly even risking a loss to some future Republican candidate.

So I think I'm going to vote Heck. He'll be a fine and competent governor for a few years, and then we'll have an open seat primary. Possibly one where candidates I can actually get excited for (Like Public Lands commissioner Hillary Franz or AG Bob Ferguson) are on the ballot.

[Xing]

For the Washington posters, who are you hoping to win, Liias or Heck?

I'm undecided as of now. I voted for Liias in the primary because it was pretty clear Heck would make the general and I was hoping to have a D vs. D general. Maybe risky, but hey, it paid off.

I’m actually in exactly the same boat. I’m undecided as of right now, but strategically voted for Liias in the primary to give him a slot in the top two.

[Seattle]

For the Washington posters, who are you hoping to win, Liias or Heck?

I'm undecided as of now. I voted for Liias in the primary because it was pretty clear Heck would make the general and I was hoping to have a D vs. D general. Maybe risky, but hey, it paid off.

I’m actually in exactly the same boat. I’m undecided as of right now, but strategically voted for Liias in the primary to give him a slot in the top two.

Same here. Though I think I'll probably end up voting for Heck in the end.

I think there's a decent chance WA-2 ends up D vs D.

[Crumpets]

For the Washington posters, who are you hoping to win, Liias or Heck?

I'm undecided as of now. I voted for Liias in the primary because it was pretty clear Heck would make the general and I was hoping to have a D vs. D general. Maybe risky, but hey, it paid off.

I’m actually in exactly the same boat. I’m undecided as of right now, but strategically voted for Liias in the primary to give him a slot in the top two.

Same here. Though I think I'll probably end up voting for Heck in the end.

I think there's a decent chance WA-2 ends up D vs D.

Lol. I love to think that Liias's entire electoral coalition is just Atlas-style Dems who strategically overthink everything.

[RI]

Republicans still have more votes combined in WA-08 than Dems.

[Yellowhammer]

This is looking surprisingly good for Republicans