Washington 2020: The Calm Before the Drizzle

[Oldiesfreak1854]

You guys just won't admit that the pundits all agree that McKenna has a better chance.  And "Democrat moderates"?  The overwhelming majority of moderates who identify with a party are Democrats.  McKenna has been running a campaign based on economic issues, as I understand, and that means he can still make significant inroads.

[Fuzzybigfoot]

You guys just won't admit that the pundits all agree that McKenna has a better chance.  And "Democrat moderates"?  The overwhelming majority of moderates who identify with a party are Democrats.  McKenna has been running a campaign based on economic issues, as I understand, and that means he can still make significant inroads.

......

Link?

[Miles]

You guys just won't admit that the pundits all agree that McKenna has a better chance.  And "Democrat moderates"?  The overwhelming majority of moderates who identify with a party are Democrats.  McKenna has been running a campaign based on economic issues, as I understand, and that means he can still make significant inroads.

......

Link?

But a majority of recent polls show that Inslee has the better chance.

[Alcon]

Rasmussen, 500 LV, 9/26/2012

Inslee 46%
McKenna 45%

Anyone with access to more of the poll?

Apparently they also polled pot and Gregoire approval (strange two selections)

[minionofmidas]

This is a really bizarre observation, but...if you look at the state voter database (or VoteBuilder or whatever), and look up people born on the 1st of any year, they're way, way disproportionately likely to have Muslim names.  Can anyone think of any explanation for that?

Maybe no record of their birth or something?

Yes, and little tradition of remembering birthdays. Should be even more pronounced on January 1st. (With Southern Blacks in the old days you got the opposite issue - they always knew their birthday but usually not the year. Though that of course resulted in their making a number up rather than all be recorded as born in xx00.)

[bgwah]

You guys just won't admit that the pundits all agree that McKenna has a better chance.  And "Democrat moderates"?  The overwhelming majority of moderates who identify with a party are Democrats.  McKenna has been running a campaign based on economic issues, as I understand, and that means he can still make significant inroads.

Are you dumb or just trolling? Most of us have spent the last four years thinking McKenna would win. It's only since August that we've started thinking differently, given the primary results and numerous polls showing Inslee ahead, not too mention McKenna's less than impressive campaign thus far. And despite all of that, all of us will still acknowledge he has a good chance.

It's nothing personal... You just don't know what you're talking about. Most posters know better than to get into too much detail over our state, given how knowlegable our WA posters are. Even the Sam and Al types avoid it. Lewis tries, and he's usually not wrong, just pointing our something thats so obvious to the WA posters its not even worth mentioning, like how Whitman=students (no offense Lewis, you know we love you.)

But anyway, don't think you can get away with dismissing our analyses as partisan. They're about the only non-partisan thing in here!

[Seattle]

It was coming in some way:

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Political-staffer-taking-heat-after-controversial-Tweet-171871901.html

Somebody meemed McKenna's photo.

[Alcon]

This is a really bizarre observation, but...if you look at the state voter database (or VoteBuilder or whatever), and look up people born on the 1st of any year, they're way, way disproportionately likely to have Muslim names.  Can anyone think of any explanation for that?

Maybe no record of their birth or something?

Yes, and little tradition of remembering birthdays. Should be even more pronounced on January 1st. (With Southern Blacks in the old days you got the opposite issue - they always knew their birthday but usually not the year. Though that of course resulted in their making a number up rather than all be recorded as born in xx00.)

Yeah, sorry, by "first of the year" I meant January 1st.  Thanks.

[bgwah]

It was coming in some way:

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Political-staffer-taking-heat-after-controversial-Tweet-171871901.html

Somebody meemed McKenna's photo.

lol. Especially at Baumgartner.

[Ogre Mage]

You guys just won't admit that the pundits all agree that McKenna has a better chance.  And "Democrat moderates"?  The overwhelming majority of moderates who identify with a party are Democrats.  McKenna has been running a campaign based on economic issues, as I understand, and that means he can still make significant inroads.

Inslee won the primary 47-43.  Most notably, McKenna got 34% in King County.  That is awful.  Any political analyst/writer in Washington will say a candidate cannot win statewide with King County numbers like that.   Inslee has led every poll I've seen since late July.

This Danny Westneat column might be instructive:

http://seattletimes.com/html/dannywestneat/2018947176_danny19.html

[Boris]

You guys just won't admit that the pundits all agree that McKenna has a better chance.  And "Democrat moderates"?  The overwhelming majority of moderates who identify with a party are Democrats.  McKenna has been running a campaign based on economic issues, as I understand, and that means he can still make significant inroads.

Are you dumb or just trolling? Most of us have spent the last four years thinking McKenna would win. It's only since August that we've started thinking differently, given the primary results and numerous polls showing Inslee ahead, not too mention McKenna's less than impressive campaign thus far. And despite all of that, all of us will still acknowledge he has a good chance.

It's nothing personal... You just don't know what you're talking about. Most posters know better than to get into too much detail over our state, given how knowlegable our WA posters are. Even the Sam and Al types avoid it. Lewis tries, and he's usually not wrong, just pointing our something thats so obvious to the WA posters its not even worth mentioning, like how Whitman=students (no offense Lewis, you know we love you.)

But anyway, don't think you can get away with dismissing our analyses as partisan. They're about the only non-partisan thing in here!

How impressed would you be if someone from like Finland walked into this thread and just started throwing down the most esoteric information about Washington ever?

[minionofmidas]

This is a really bizarre observation, but...if you look at the state voter database (or VoteBuilder or whatever), and look up people born on the 1st of any year, they're way, way disproportionately likely to have Muslim names.  Can anyone think of any explanation for that?

Maybe no record of their birth or something?

Yes, and little tradition of remembering birthdays. Should be even more pronounced on January 1st. (With Southern Blacks in the old days you got the opposite issue - they always knew their birthday but usually not the year. Though that of course resulted in their making a number up rather than all be recorded as born in xx00.)

Yeah, sorry, by "first of the year" I meant January 1st.  Thanks.

It's called reading comprehension. Somehow I read you as claiming it was on the first of every month. I dunno why.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

You guys just won't admit that the pundits all agree that McKenna has a better chance.   And "Democrat moderates"?  The overwhelming majority of moderates who identify with a party are Democrats.  McKenna has been running a campaign based on economic issues, as I understand, and that means he can still make significant inroads.

......

Link?

But a majority of recent polls show that Inslee has the better chance.

Yeah, but they're close and don't necessarily reflect a better chance for the Democrats.  Most polls still have it within the margin of error.  And McKenna got 34% in King County?  That was just in the primary, though, right?  This race is probably a toss-up.  I saw an analysis from a guy in Washington state who made a comment about how nobody he knew thought Inslee had a better chance of winning.  Admittedly, though, I would love to see the Republicans recover from a 28-year drought of no governors there.  Don't make it 32 years, you guys!  McKenna all the way!

[Alcon]

^

I mean, I'm sure people who believe that exist, but on what basis?  A few months ago, most of us would have agreed -- Inslee seemed stuck in a rut of 3-7 points behind.  But the race has clearly shifted by every indicator toward Inslee.  Unless these pundits and friends-of-pundits have an argument that goes beyond gut feeling, I'm not sure why I'd pay much attention to it.  Yes, McKenna's poor performance was only the primary, but it's not like there's reason to believe the primary electorate would be unusually hostile to him.  (Although, to be fair, McKenna did do better in the 2008 General than the 2008 Primary by several points...but I think that was more because he ran the superior campaign)

[Alcon]

I don't know what this is, or half of what is going on, but this must be the result of some really inspiring drugs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF3xnumI0Z8

[Oldiesfreak1854]

^

I mean, I'm sure people who believe that exist, but on what basis?  A few months ago, most of us would have agreed -- Inslee seemed stuck in a rut of 3-7 points behind.  But the race has clearly shifted by every indicator toward Inslee.  Unless these pundits and friends-of-pundits have an argument that goes beyond gut feeling, I'm not sure why I'd pay much attention to it.  Yes, McKenna's poor performance was only the primary, but it's not like there's reason to believe the primary electorate would be unusually hostile to him.  (Although, to be fair, McKenna did do better in the 2008 General than the 2008 Primary by several points...but I think that was more because he ran the superior campaign)

Admittedly, I don't live in Washington state, but if McKenna is a moderate, then there is reason with the rise of the Tea Party movement to think that the primary electorate might have been hostile to him.  I have an argument for McKenna winning.  Even though he did poorly in King County, the race is still within or just outside of the margin of error.  If it's still that close despite McKenna only getting 34% in King County, then that seems pretty encouraging for the GOP.   And I've heard that McKenna performs well in the debates.  If that continues, he may convince enough undecided to support him, and that could make the difference.

[Alaska2392]

So, just out of curiosity, is it a good thing for Inslee that SurveyUSA is saying he ahead by 6% in the 6th district or is that lower than it should be?

What I mean is, how does that compare to other years like 2008? 

At first I was really excited by this... but now I'm a little nervous considering the 6th includes places like Tacoma, Jefferson County, and Grays Harbor.

[Seattle]

That's okay, its not great. Obama won the 6th by 10 (?) or so. Well, the old 6th, I don't know about the new one.

It would be more interesting to see who leads in the new 10th and 1st districts.

[Meeker]

^ Obama actually did slightly worse in the new 6th than the new 10th.

The 6th does have two Democratic bastions (Tacoma and Port Townsend) but most of it is swingy to Republican turf. Inslee leading by six there indicates he's probably up by 4 or so statewide, in line with recent public polling.

Unless McKenna can break 40% in King County, nothing else really matters anyways

[Fuzzybigfoot]

Actually, Obama won the 6th and the 10th by 16% or 17%. 

[bgwah]

The new WA-06 voted +16 Obama in 2008 and +5 Murray in 2010.

So basically it matches statewide polling, which suggests Inslee would win by a margin similar to Murray's in 2010 if the election were held today.

[Alcon]

It's also worth noting that Inslee won WA-6 by 48.5%-42.3% in the primary, but when you factor in minor candidates, Dem-leaning candidates only came out on top 51.9%-48.1% (+3.9%).  So, at risk of ignoring MoE, Inslee +6% is actually a slight upswing from the primary in the 6th.  Statewide, the Dem primary margin was a little thinner than in the 6th - only 51.1%-48.9% (+2.2%).  Still, assuming this poll accurate and a uniform swing, this suggests a lead of 4-5% for Inslee.  That's a perfectly good poll for him, and about in-line with what we've been seeing lately.

[Alcon]

SUSA statewide

Inslee 48%
McKenna 42%

http://www.king5.com/news/up-front/polls/KING-5-poll-Inslee-maintains-lead-over-McKenna-172226451.html

[Seattle]

Actually, Obama won the 6th and the 10th by 16% or 17%. 

Thanks! Lol, that's why I included the question mark.

[bgwah]

The northern part of Kitsap County (including Bainbridge Island, where Inslee lives) was also moved from WA-01 to WA-06. It's not a terribly populated area, but it could possibly be giving Inslee a small boost in the new WA-06.