Washington 2020: The Calm Before the Drizzle

[publicunofficial]

Another close result: In Grays Harbor, Pat McCarthy leads Bob Miloscia by ONE vote. 11,399 to 11,398

[publicunofficial]

Check out the urban/suburban divide on ST3.

[KingSweden]

Check out the urban/suburban divide on ST3.

Redmond really wants their part of the line finished, clearly

[RI]

Some more results from around the state:

City	County	Clinton	Trump	Johnson	Stein
Othello	Adams	42.3	51.4	4.3
Ritzville	Adams	25.0	68.8	4.2
Forks	Clallam	34.4	58.6	4.3
Port Angeles	Clallam	51.9	40.8	4.5
Sequim	Clallam	51.1	43.4	3.0
Aberdeen	Grays Harbor	43.6	48.9	4.7
Hoquiam	Grays Harbor	47.2	44.5	5.2
Ocean Shores	Grays Harbor	47.8	47.0	3.2
Camano Island	Island	46.5	47.1	4.7
Oak Harbor	Island	38.9	50.6	7.7
Port Ludlow	Jefferson	52.8	41.3	4.0
Port Townsend	Jefferson	77.7	14.5	2.4	4.7
Bainbridge Island	Kitsap	80.1	14.6	3.6
Bremerton	Kitsap	54.2	34.7	7.6
Port Orchard	Kitsap	44.9	45.0	7.6
Anacortes	Skagit	56.1	37.8	4.0
Burlington	Skagit	44.9	46.8	6.0
Mount Vernon	Skagit	55.0	38.3	4.5
Sedro-Wooley	Skagit	42.0	49.5	5.8
Cheney	Spokane	48.0	39.0	8.2
Liberty Lake	Spokane	35.9	56.5	6.0
Spokane	Spokane	52.4	38.0	5.7
Spokane Valley	Spokane	37.1	54.1	5.9
Lacey	Thurston	54.5	36.7	6.0
Olympia	Thurston	70.5	20.9	3.8	4.0
Tumwater	Thurston	56.3	34.4	5.9
Yelm	Thurston	33.0	54.8	9.2
College Place	Walla Walla	35.9	56.1	6.1
Walla Walla	Walla Walla	47.8	46.0	4.0
Pullman	Whitman	69.8	21.5	5.7

[KingSweden]

Wow at Walla Walla going D

[Fuzzybigfoot]

With only about 4,000 ballots left to count, here are the precinct results for Whatcom County.



                  Clinton    Trump       (MOV)            

Bellingham: 72.28%-19.63%  (52.65%)  

Ferndale:     45.50%-45.59%  (5 votes, lol)

Blaine:         49.20%-44.10%  (5.10%)

Lynden:       69.01%-24.52%  (44.49%)



Trump might be the only Republican in US history to get less than 20% of the vote in Bellingham.  It's too bad she's losing Ferndale by 5 votes out of over 5,000 total, but she's still winning the 42nd LD by about 2%.

I'm not surprised to see the smaller towns like Kendall and Custer swing hard towards Trump, considering their large percentage of low-income whites.  Likewise, it's also worth mentioning that the Northeast precinct by lake Whatcom went from being +10% Romeny to +15% Clinton, due to it's abundance of affluent whites who absolutely despise Trump.    

Also, lol at Trump for failing to hit 70% in Lynden.  

[Alaska2392]

Can we now FINALLY put to bed this notion that "Crazy King County" delivers big results to 3rd parties?

Stein is at 1.61% and Johnson at 3.95%.  So combined they overperformed about 1% vs the nation.

[Seattle]

Well, third party + right-ins = 9.2% right now in King County. That's pretty high.

[Seattle]

I've been following late returns and they've definitely been less pro-Clinton than the election day vote, even in King County. That's a change from the norm, isn't it?

[RI]

Clark County flipped to Trump by 5 votes.

[Alcon]

I've been following late returns and they've definitely been less pro-Clinton than the election day vote, even in King County. That's a change from the norm, isn't it?

Yes, especially in King County, where late turns usually veer very Democratic.  Early ballot returns this year were way Democratic-skewed, and it looks like that's showing up in the results.

[RI]

Does anyone have any inclination why Whitman County's turnout is down over 50% from 2012? It's not like the population's declined.

[BigSkyBob]

Looking towards the legislature:

There are still some 600k votes left to be counted, so results can still be swayed (particularly in King(200k)/Pierce(90k)/Snohomish(80k)).

House:
Ds are currently at a very tenuous +1. It could shift to no net change or even up to +4.

Of particular note, LD30 (Federal Way) just voted out both of its incumbent Rs, so D+2 there. R+1 in nearby LD31 (rural farms of King and Pierce), where longtime "independent D" incumbent Chris Hurst retired.

LD19, on the coast, swung massively to Trump. He most likely won this traditionally conservadem district. Anyway, Dean Takko upgraded to the senate and so his house seat was left open. It's currently a D hold, but oh so barely. Teresa Purcell (D) leads by 83 votes. Takko and the other D incumbent, Blake, won easily, but under-performed.

Then we have LD5 (Issaquah, North Bend, Snoqualmie), where both house seats are very close, Jay Rodne (R, inc) leads Jason Ritchie (D) by 3%, though Ritchie originally lead. Idk where the votes are in this district, but its not likely this will flip. Graves (R) leads Burner (D) in the open seat by 5.5%.

Finally, there's R-held, open seats in LD17 (newly annexed Vancouver and other PDX suburbs), where Vicki Craft (R) leads Sam Kim (Independent D) by 3%.

Senate
Litzow finally succumbed to the fundamentals of LD41 (Mercer Island, Bellevue, Sammamish), that most likely will have voted D+40 for Clinton. Lisa Wellman (D) leads by 5.5%.

Chad Magendanz (R), tried to upgrade his LD5 house position, but it looks like he's fallen short and trails incumbent Mark Mullet (D)by 2.5%.

The only other really competitive race is in LD28 (parts of Tacoma, Lakewood, JBLM), where incumbent Steve O'Ban (R) leads Marisa Peloquin (D) by 6%.

So D+1, but also keep in mind, I think the Ds will also pick up Andy Hill's seat, which won't be very competitive with a Trump presidency (another district that voted massively for Clinton).

Jim Walsh is now ahead of Teresa Purcell by 76 votes in LD19 [Lewis County had over a third of the ballots uncounted on election night.] Chad Magendanz is now within 1.38% in LD5, and Terri Hickey is now down 1.92% in LD30.

[publicunofficial]

If Jaime Beutler wasn't ultra safe before, she certainly is going forward

[Alcon]

Clark County just unexpectedly flipped back to Clinton.

Does anyone have any inclination why Whitman County's turnout is down over 50% from 2012? It's not like the population's declined.

Pullman turnout looks absolutely terrible, which is a big part of why the county is even close right now.  But above that, their Auditor's department is also terrible.  They report as only 72% counted.

[BigSkyBob]

Looking towards the legislature:

There are still some 600k votes left to be counted, so results can still be swayed (particularly in King(200k)/Pierce(90k)/Snohomish(80k)).

House:
Ds are currently at a very tenuous +1. It could shift to no net change or even up to +4.

Of particular note, LD30 (Federal Way) just voted out both of its incumbent Rs, so D+2 there. R+1 in nearby LD31 (rural farms of King and Pierce), where longtime "independent D" incumbent Chris Hurst retired.

LD19, on the coast, swung massively to Trump. He most likely won this traditionally conservadem district. Anyway, Dean Takko upgraded to the senate and so his house seat was left open. It's currently a D hold, but oh so barely. Teresa Purcell (D) leads by 83 votes. Takko and the other D incumbent, Blake, won easily, but under-performed.

Then we have LD5 (Issaquah, North Bend, Snoqualmie), where both house seats are very close, Jay Rodne (R, inc) leads Jason Ritchie (D) by 3%, though Ritchie originally lead. Idk where the votes are in this district, but its not likely this will flip. Graves (R) leads Burner (D) in the open seat by 5.5%.

Finally, there's R-held, open seats in LD17 (newly annexed Vancouver and other PDX suburbs), where Vicki Craft (R) leads Sam Kim (Independent D) by 3%.

Senate
Litzow finally succumbed to the fundamentals of LD41 (Mercer Island, Bellevue, Sammamish), that most likely will have voted D+40 for Clinton. Lisa Wellman (D) leads by 5.5%.

Chad Magendanz (R), tried to upgrade his LD5 house position, but it looks like he's fallen short and trails incumbent Mark Mullet (D)by 2.5%.

The only other really competitive race is in LD28 (parts of Tacoma, Lakewood, JBLM), where incumbent Steve O'Ban (R) leads Marisa Peloquin (D) by 6%.

So D+1, but also keep in mind, I think the Ds will also pick up Andy Hill's seat, which won't be very competitive with a Trump presidency (another district that voted massively for Clinton).

Jim Walsh is now ahead of Teresa Purcell by 76 votes in LD19 [Lewis County had over a third of the ballots uncounted on election night.] Chad Magendanz is now within 1.38% in LD5, and Teri Hickey is now down 1.92% in LD30.

Jim Walsh is now 127 votes ahead, with most the outstanding ballots in Lewis County. He should win. Madgendanz is within 1.22%, and Teri Hickey is within  1.76%

[publicunofficial]

Clark County just unexpectedly flipped back to Clinton.

Does anyone have any inclination why Whitman County's turnout is down over 50% from 2012? It's not like the population's declined.

Pullman turnout looks absolutely terrible, which is a big part of why the county is even close right now.  But above that, their Auditor's department is also terrible.  They report as only 72% counted.

If Pullman turnout is low, why did Whitman go blue this year after being a Romney county?

[RI]

If Pullman turnout is low, why did Whitman go blue this year after being a Romney county?

Among (many) other things, all the Romney-voting Mormons here (~5% of the pop) wrote-in McMullin or didn't vote.

[Alcon]

Clark County just unexpectedly flipped back to Clinton.

Does anyone have any inclination why Whitman County's turnout is down over 50% from 2012? It's not like the population's declined.

Pullman turnout looks absolutely terrible, which is a big part of why the county is even close right now.  But above that, their Auditor's department is also terrible.  They report as only 72% counted.

If Pullman turnout is low, why did Whitman go blue this year after being a Romney county?

Not sure about the write-in explanation...Whitman isn't reporting an unusual number of those.  The biggest factor is that Pullman is actually a pretty college-educated city even outside of its university population, and Trump took it on the chin there.  Obama won by 28 points in 2012; this year, Clinton is winning by at least 42.  And turnout wasn't that bad outside of the WSU campus (should have clarified).  Pullman's vote total should fall from 8,627 last time to just over 8,000 this time.  The county is overall on track to cast more votes, though, and that will limit Clinton's margin of victory despite the impressive Pullman swing, because Pullman will be a lower % of the county vote, and Trump did just fine in places like Colfax.

(Fast math, hopefully I didn't miss something)

[RI]

I'm going through the Pullman precinct results more carefully. It seems the high-growth, cookie-cutter suburban developments in the west of town saw the best turnout, either essentially flat or even up. These areas have seen rapid building and quickly climbing property values; as SEL's expanded, the engineers have been buying them up like crazy as it's pretty much the only such area in town. Unsurprisingly, this area saw a large swing against Trump compared to 2012.

Turnout was down on campus, but not uniformly so. There was a massive turnout decline (so far) in the dorm precincts on the south side of campus and a slightly smaller, although still large, drop-off in the Greek Row area on the north side of campus (Greek Row featured Johnson's second best performance in town). A couple apartment complex areas to the east and northeast side of campus actually swung toward Trump with relatively small turnout declines, particularly the area around Banyans Golf Club; not many people live out on the east side of town, however.

The more heavily Mormon apartment complexes on the northeast side of town swung moderately toward Hillary, but only because Trump's share crashed there; Hillary's proportion stayed constant from 2012 to 2016, but Johnson did his best of anywhere in town here (tied Trump for second), although these numbers don't include the write-ins, which I believe were notable here.

Off-campus, there was also a strong swing to Hillary in the area to the north of town that's been undergoing large-scale apartment building. Even though the area is almost entirely students, turnout compared to 2012 wasn't awful there due to a relatively large population increase. The area is fairly East Asian as of 2010, but I suspect the proportion may have declined since then with an influx of white and Arab students in the new developments.

Just north of this is a precinct that is a weird mix of SEL-types, Mormons, and pet-friendly students. Johnson got this third and final >10% performance here, although turnout was quite down from 2012. SEL's been buying up lots of land here to build a second facility for the next phase of their expansion.

Military Hill on the northwest side of town saw rather stable turnout from 2012 and a much smaller swing than the rest of town. This isn't overly surprising as the area is mostly townie-types in older neighborhoods who keep themselves separate from the WSU student areas. Most professors and administrators live on either Sunnyside Hill (which saw a strong swing to Clinton and relatively strong turnout) or on Pioneer Hill (which saw a modest swing to Clinton and relatively strong turnout), but not as much on Military Hill.

[Alcon]

Thanks realistic!  Interesting stuff.

[mds32]

Dino Rossi could be appointed to Andy Hill's vacant Senate Seat.

Could Rossi actually hold the seat in the special election for Republicans?
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/dino-rossi-says-hes-willing-to-temporarily-replace-hill-in-state-senate/

[publicunofficial]

Dino Rossi could be appointed to Andy Hill's vacant Senate Seat.

Could Rossi actually hold the seat in the special election for Republicans?
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/dino-rossi-says-hes-willing-to-temporarily-replace-hill-in-state-senate/

A few years ago Rossi was appointed to fill a Senate vacancy in a different district. He didn't run for the open seat then; don't see why he would now in a district that would be even harder to hold. I think he's done with politics for the most part.

[KingSweden]

Dino Rossi could be appointed to Andy Hill's vacant Senate Seat.

Could Rossi actually hold the seat in the special election for Republicans?
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/dino-rossi-says-hes-willing-to-temporarily-replace-hill-in-state-senate/

A few years ago Rossi was appointed to fill a Senate vacancy in a different district. He didn't run for the open seat then; don't see why he would now in a district that would be even harder to hold. I think he's done with politics for the most part.

He'd probably hold til the special and step down again. Have to imagine Goodman or Isenhower run and take it. Wonder who GOP would run if Rossi is there as placeholder - can't imagine there's another Hill out there

[Seattle]

I think the only person the Rs could run and win with is King County Council member Kathy Lambert. I have no idea if she would want to, considering she left the state house for her current position.