Washington, Part 2: A Democrat's Utopia

Between its growing suburbs, high education levels, and diversifying electorate, the Evergreen State is extremely well-suited for today's Democratic Party.

Once a contested swing state, Washington has become a Democratic stronghold in both presidential and down-ballot races. Since 2000, Democrats have held the governor’s office, both Senate seats, and a majority of House seats, even as Republicans occasionally won less partisan state offices with moderate candidates. Despite Republicans frequently targeting statewide races, they consistently fall short.

Washington’s consistency contrasts with national trends, where Democrats struggle down-ballot even in blue states. This raises the question: why has Washington grown steadily bluer?

In case you missed it, read Washington, Part 1: A Democrat's Utopia

Part 2 Preview: Exploring Washington’s Unique Blue Trend

Seattle and the “Blue Wall”

The Smiley-Murray race is just one example of a repeated pattern in Washington State: Republican rurals are overcome by a “blue wall”¹ located in the western half of the state, preventing Republicans from winning more than 43 percent of the vote in most elections.

The blue wall I'm referring to is King County, which includes the state’s largest city, Seattle, and its heavily urbanized surrounding counties.

Seattle, the state’s largest city, has seen remarkable growth—between 2010 and 2020, it was one of the six fastest-growing metro areas in the country,²adding over 128,000 residents. It’s one of only 14 American cities to grow by more than 100,000 people during that period.³

King County’s suburban areas have also expanded, growing by over 50% compared to the national average of 32%, with an influx of more than 338,000 residents in the last decade,⁴ , bringing the total population to 2.27 million. Only four other counties in the U.S. saw increases of this magnitude.

Reflecting national trends, King County has also become more diverse over the past decade. The non-Hispanic white share of the population fell by over 10 percentage points, while the Asian population rose by more than 5 points to 19.8%. The Black and Hispanic populations both grew by a little over 1 percentage point.⁵

Washington’s High Engagement Political Culture

In terms of the state’s political culture, I’d characterize King County voters as high propensity voters - because they go out to vote a ton - turning out at an astonishing 86.% ⁶in the 2020 election (compared to an already high 76% turnout in Washington state at large⁷ and 66% turnout nationally). King County voter turnout also significantly surpassed turnout in cities like New York City (63.3% turnout), Los Angeles county⁸ (57% turnout) and Chicago and Cook County (72.2%), that same year.

They're also reliable voters - and this culture/pattern of high turnout and participation— already seems to be in place looking across several election cycles (not just 2020). King County voter turnout was as high as 81% in both 2016 and 2012. Compared to a more uneven voter turnout in New York City which saw 56.3% voter turnout in 2016, Chicago and Cook County (71.54% turnout in 2016), and Denver County⁹ which saw 2020 turnout 76.24%, 2016 turnout at 72% and 63.48% turnout in 2012.

Washington’s High-Engagement Political Culture

King County’s political culture stands out for its high voter engagement and its notably secular character, both of which play a role in shaping its Democratic lean. Washington’s voters are also more likely to be politically engaged. They probably do know what the candidates look like; maybe even how they talk, and what exactly they say.

And the numbers reflect this. King County voters are high propensity voters - and demonstrate a pattern of consistent high turnout across election cycles. In the 2020 election, King County saw an extraordinary 86% turnout, surpassing both Washington state’s overall turnout of 76% and the national turnout of 66%. This turnout also outpaced major cities like New York City (63.3%), Los Angeles County (57%), and Chicago's Cook County (72.2%).

This pattern isn’t limited to 2020; King County turnout was similarly strong in previous elections, with 81% turnout in both 2016 and 2012. In contrast, cities like New York City saw lower turnout, with 56.3% in 2016, while Denver County’s turnout varied more dramatically, from 63.5% in 2012 to 76.2% in 2020.

Washington voters are also highly educated. According to the Washington Post’s exit polls, 80 percent of the Evergreen State’s voters had at least a college degree (with the same poll showing that voters without a college degree comprised 59 percent of the total voting population, with no data on further levels of higher education).

Another defining aspect of King County’s political culture is its secularism. Seattle, at the heart of King County, has some of the lowest levels of religious affiliation in the U.S., and this secular tendency is evident in the county’s politics. High turnout and secular values go hand-in-hand here, contributing to a consistent pattern of support for Democratic candidates and progressive policies across election cycles.

All these factors contribute heavily to the state's Democratic lean and help set the state up as what I believe to be a Democratic' 'utopia'. 

Defying National Trends: Seattle’s Steadfast Urban Support for Democrats

Across much of the country, Democrats have struggled with a gradual erosion of support in core urban constituency, where Republicans have made inroads with minority voters, capitalizing on concerns over crime and socialism.

For example, in New York City—a long-standing Democratic stronghold—Joe Biden underperformed Hillary Clinton’s 2016 margins in 2020, despite overperforming her nationally. In 2022, Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul continued this downward trend, winning New York City by less than 70%, a drop from Democrats’ previous 80%+ margins.

Seattle, in contrast, has shown no evidence of this urban backslide. On the contrary, from 2012 to 2020, Democrats increased their share of the vote in Seattle from 83% to 88% of voters, underscoring Seattle's overwhelming and expanding Democratic base of support.

Suburbs That Stay Blue: Washington’s Reliable Democratic Base

Washington’s suburbs are solidly and consistently blue—a stability that contrasts with the national battleground status of suburban areas.

Suburbs have emerged as a key battleground nationally, with many election outcomes across the nation turning on this pivotal voter segment. For example, in 2020, Joe Biden flipped key swing states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania after Democrats had lost all three of these states only 4 years earlier - partly by making gains in their suburban areas.

However, Democrats’ success in the suburbs is not guaranteed nationwide; in Virginia’s 2021 gubernatorial race, Democrat Terry McAuliffe lost by nearly three points in large part because he failed to retain Biden’s margins in the Northern Virginia suburbs.

In Washington, however, suburban voters around Seattle remain reliably liberal and high-turnout. In 2020 Joe Biden won the area surrounding Seattle by nearly 20 points, and Democratic Senator Patty Murray likely won these areas by a similar margin 2 years later. 

Defying Democrats’ National Challenges: Less Polarized Rural Populace

Washington’s rural voters also defy national trends by being less polarized than rural areas in many other states, both ideologically and in partisan preference.

Although Washington’s rural counties decisively favored Trump in 2020, he won only 54% of the rural vote—significantly lower than his 57% share nationwide. In fact, even if votes from Washington’s three largest counties (King, Snohomish, and Pierce) were removed, Biden would still have won the state by around 4,000 votes.¹⁰

Unlike in the South or Midwest, where some rural counties gave Trump over 80% of the vote, no rural county in Washington reached such extreme levels. Many of Washington’s rural counties gave Trump margins in the 60s or 70s, reflecting strong support but not anywhere close to the near-unanimous backing seen in states like Texas or Alabama, where a large number of rural counties give Trump upwards of 90% of the vote.

A recent race that illustrates this distinct rural dynamic is Washington’s 2022 election in the 3rd Congressional District, a Republican-leaning, largely rural area where Democrat Marie Glusenkamp Perez ran against Republican Joe Kent.

Kent, an extremist who openly quoted a white supremacist author and received endorsements from figures like Neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes, represented a far-right platform. Although WA-03 had historically leaned conservative, with Trump winning by more than 3 points in 2020, a majority of its voters ultimately chose Glusenkamp Perez over Kent.

In many other rural areas, voters might have supported Kent, or voters might have ignored Kent’s extreme views, choosing a candidate based on party label alone, especially amid concerns about inflation and the economy. However, Washington’s rural voters proved discerning, rejecting Kent’s extreme agenda and supporting a Democrat instead.

If the undiscerning voter had walked into the ballot, intended to vote only based on the lackluster economy and rising inflation, she might cast her ballot for whichever candidate had an R next to their name; in this case, Joe Kent.

However, if they watched even a couple of either candidate’s ads or simply read any news about the state of the race, they’d realize that Joe Kent isn’t just a boring ol’ fiscal conservative: he’s crazy.

This choice reflects a potential characteristic of Washington’s rural electorate—a willingness to cross party lines in the face of extremism.

In Washington, however, a small but significant portion of these voters rejected Kent's far-right agenda and cast their ballots for a Democrat.

Defying Democrats’ National Challenges: Limited Anti-Trump Moderates

And it’s not just about recognizing crazy, either.

Democrats across the nation have recently struggled to retain their tenuous alliances with middle-of-the-road voters — alliances largely borne out of a shared opposition to Trumpism — in the absence of Trump. In Washington, however, these swingy, moderate voters are either fewer in number or more consistently aligned with Democrats.

Even when offered a moderate Republican alternative, Washington’s centrist voters have largely stayed with Democrats.

In 2022, for example, incumbent Democratic Senator Patty Murray faced a stiff challenge from Tiffany Smiley, who was widely perceived as a more conventional, moderate Republican, due to her moderate stance on abortion. Polling had shown the race to be within the margin of error; on November 8th, however, Murray won by nearly 15 points, receiving 57.1% of the vote—a result almost identical to Biden’s 57.9% in 2020. Unlike other states, where moderate suburban voters shifted back to Republicans in 2022, Washington Democrats’ coalition held firm.

This is what differentiates Washington even from other blue states like Virginia, where Biden’s 10-point victory in 2020 was largely due to unprecedented support in historically Republican suburbs near D.C. But in the 2022 midterms, without Trump on the ballot, many of these voters returned to their Republican roots.

For example, in VA-10, a DC-adjacent, suburban district, Biden’s 19-point margin in 2020 shrank to a 6.5-point win for Democratic Rep. Jennifer Wexton two years later. Meanwhile, Washington’s WA-06, a heavily suburban district, showed no such shift, supporting Biden with an 18% share of vote in 2020, then re-electing Rep. Derek Kilmer by 20.1% - even slightly increasing his margin two years later.

In states like Virginia and New York, a significant part of the Democratic coalition (around 5-10%) consists of voters who would probably support a Democrat in a presidential race but would otherwise lean Republican. Washington, however, has little evidence of such voters in significant numbers.

Looking Ahead: GOP Prospects

It's easy for Republican strategists to argue that Republicans could improve their margins in Washington by fielding less extreme candidates —a strategy that has shown promise in states like Arizona or Pennsylvania, where far-right candidates have cost Republicans winnable races.

However, two obstacles make this strategy difficult in Washington.

First: it's not so easy for Republicans to just start nominating less crazy candidates.

First, Washington’s GOP, like many state parties, has been overtaken by a faction focused on culture wars and election denial rather than the traditional conservatism that might appeal to moderates. The state’s current GOP chair, Jim Walsh, is better known for rallying against the state’s COVID restrictions and comparing those who enacted vaccine mandates to fascists in Nazi Germany than for focusing on fiscal conservatism. ¹¹

Even if the party aimed to nominate moderate candidates, they cannot fully control the outcome of primaries.

Ultimately, it's the voters in the primaries who decide which candidates are going to be elevated to the general election.

The vast majority of the Republican base in Washington leans older, whiter, and rural. And while I established that the state’s rurals are less conservative than one might expect, there are still plenty of voters who skew heavily towards the right — and these voters currently dominate the Republican coalition.

They often choose candidates who best reflect their views rather than those with broad electoral appeal. A good example is the 2022 WA-03 race, where Joe Kent, a very extreme Republican, won the jungle primary against the incumbent Republican representative, Jaime Herrera Beutler, who had voted to impeach Donald Trump in 2021. Since her first election in 2010, Beutler had been reelected five times without trouble. In 2022, she had been endorsed by Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, and Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik.

In other words, Beutler had the backing of the GOP institution.

But Kent had the support of an even stronger institution: Trump. Trump’s enthusiastic support of Kent singlehandedly transformed his campaign from suicide mission to success, all thanks to Trump’s iron grip on the Republican base. This continued platforming of extremist candidates seems likely to continue: this year, Joe Kent once again advanced to the general election in WA-03.

Unless Washington Republicans find a way to loosen Trump’s stranglehold over the conservative coalition — which begins with them actually wanting to do so — they will keep throwing away electoral opportunities in a state where there already weren’t many to be found.

Here’s the second reason Republicans shouldn’t be holding their breath for a victory in Washington: even when they do nominate more moderate candidates, their electoral performances range from disappointingly mediocre to inadequately strong.

In 2022, for example, moderate Republican Tiffany Smiley lost to Patty Murray by nearly 15 points, a modest improvement over Trump’s 2020 margin in a redder national environment. Dino Rossi, who ran competitive campaigns as a moderate Republican over four elections, and was somewhat successful in consolidating the state’s rural, Republican base and reaching out to more moderate and even Democratic voters, similarly overperformed expectations but was never able to secure a win.

Ultimately, given that even moderate-to-mainstream Republicans who ran strong campaigns were unsuccessful, Republicans’ prospects in Washington appear bleak.

The Republican Dilemma: A Party Out of Step with Washington’s Electorate

Wrapping it up, we can start by talking about political prospects for Republicans in the state.

I'd really sum it up by saying that the current model of the Republican Party, which leans heavily on populist rhetoric, and social conservatism — is extremely ill-suited to Washington State.

Across the nation, Republicans have made a trade-off, sacrificing support from highly-educated, higher-income suburban moderates in exchange for a focus on working-class and rural voters. In heavily blue-collar states such as Wisconsin or Ohio, Republicans have reaped success. But in a state with one of largest secular populations in the nation, a large and growing suburban population, and high concentration of highly-educated voters, this calculus just doesn’t pencil out.

Looking Ahead: Caution to Democrats

Now, while Democrats have been, are, and will likely remain the dominant party in Washington State, it is still imperative that they not rest easy.

They need only look at their neighboring state of Oregon - which shares similar demographics and political culture with Washington, to see that Oregon has actually faced a host of tighter races recently.

This is not because Oregon is a fundamentally more conservative state than Washington, but simply because Democrats in Oregon have made a number of poor political decisions — nominating candidates who are too progressive for moderate voters, and somewhat-poorly managing the state. Issues like rising crime in Portland have eroded Democratic margins, suggesting that political missteps could endanger Democratic dominance in Washington as well.

Washington’s Democrats, however, have generally shown stronger political instincts, balancing progressive policies with moderate appeal. Nevertheless, they should remain vigilant.

In fact, Washington State features a competitive house district in WA-08, whose voters could potentially support a Republican, assuming a poor national environment for Democrats and a strong GOP nominee. The 2024 gubernatorial race in Washington, featuring a matchup between Democratic Attorney General Bob Ferguson and Republican former WA-08 Rep. Bob Reichert, provides an opening for Republicans. Reichert, who won election 8 times in a Democrat-leaning district, has a proven track record at winning. However, he faces multiple obstacles. Ferguson, who has served as AG since 2013, is a well-known politician in the state and by no means a throwaway candidate. Furthermore, Reichert shares the ballot with Donald Trump, whose brand of Republicanism is toxic in Washington. Current polling reflects Reichert’s difficult challenge: in the last three polls, Reichert has trailed Ferguson by margin of 6 to 13 points.

Regardless of whether Reichert wins or loses, his performance may still aid downballot candidates in competitive elections, most notably in WA-03 and WA-08. While Republicans hold only a modest presence in state politics—the Senate stands at 29-20 Democratic and the House at 58-40—a strong year could theoretically bring either chamber within reach.

As is, Republicans aren’t completely shut out of state politics: the current State Senate balance is 29-20 Democratic, and the House 58-40. It wouldn’t be inconceivable for Republicans to win back either or both chambers in a truly extraordinary year.

But as things stand, while the rest of the nation remains bitterly and evenly divided, Washington charts its own, defiant path — towards the bluer end of the spectrum.

.

1. Blue Wall a term coined by Ron Brownstein

2. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/growth-diversity-segregation-and-aging-in-americas-largest-metropolitan-areas-a-2020-census-portrait/#:~:text=Reflecting%20changes%20from%20earlier%20decades,N.C.%2C%20Charlotte%2C%20N.C.%2C%20and

3. https://www.thedailyworld.com/news/seattle-grew-by-more-than-100000-people-in-past-10-years-king-county-population-booms-diversifies-new-census-data-shows/

4. https://www.thedailyworld.com/news/seattle-grew-by-more-than-100000-people-in-past-10-years-king-county-population-booms-diversifies-new-census-data-shows/

5. https://www.thedailyworld.com/news/seattle-grew-by-more-than-100000-people-in-past-10-years-king-county-population-booms-diversifies-new-census-data-shows/

6. https://kingcounty.gov/en/legacy/depts/elections/elections/maps/voter-turnout

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/03a4482a6fb245d784dcfff3fdaf68b9

7. MIT Voter Turnout statistics

8. https://www.laalmanac.com/election/el02.php

9. https://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/elections/Results/Abstract/2020/general/turnout.html

10. Wikipedia

11. Walsh said: "In the current context, we’re all Jews."