Washington 2020: The Calm Before the Drizzle

[NOVA Green]

And now, a place where people actually live!  Thank God for the flu, gives me an excuse to do this all day for three days.

Kitsap

Any word on naval base precincts? I know much of county's economic navy related, but curious about how Bremerton proper, and base precincts went this time around.

[NOVA Green]

Any word on naval base precincts? I know much of county's economic navy related, but curious about how Bremerton proper, and base precincts went this time around.

The Navy ship voters are put in with Bremerton 1, which is also a downtown precinct.  I'm not sure what proportion of the voting population they are, but they can't be super-Republican.  Obama won that precinct 64-34 Obama, after Kerry won it 58-39.

The Trident Naval Base precinct (from the top of Bainbridge Island all the way east, the darkest blue precinct) went from 76-23 Bush to 58-41 McCain.

Alcon, have you cross-posted this on the military vote thread in the '08 election results area?

It's starting to look like there is at least a +15 Dem  swing in NW base precincts. I would post some for Oregon, but I don't think there is anything outside of maybe a precinct with a slight Coast Guard influence...

[NOVA Green]

* = Contains portions of other counties.

Algona: 56-42 Obama
Auburn*: 56-42 Obama
Beaux Arts Village: 66-34 Obama
Bellevue: 64-35 Obama
Black Diamond: 50-49 Obama
Bothell*: 61-37 Obama
Burien: 67-31 Obama
Carnation: 62-36 Obama
Clyde Hill: 51-48 Obama
Covington: 55-43 Obama
Des Moines: 63-35 Obama
Duvall: 55-43 Obama
Enumclaw: 50-48 Obama
Federal Way: 61-38 Obama
Hunts Point: 56-43 McCain
Issaquah: 63-36 Obama
Kenmore: 67-32 Obama
Kent: 61-37 Obama
Kirkland: 66-33 Obama
Lake Forest Park: 74-24 Obama
Maple Valley: 52-46 Obama
Medina: 54-46 Obama
Mercer Island: 67-32 Obama
Milton*: 54-44 Obama
Newcastle: 61-37 Obama
Normandy Park: 59-40 Obama
North Bend: 58-40 Obama
Pacific*: 55-42 Obama
Redmond: 66-32 Obama
Renton: 67-32 Obama
Sammamish: 59-39 Obama
SeaTac: 66-32 Obama
Seattle: 85-14 Obama (beating San Francisco)
Shoreline: 73-25 Obama
Skykomish: 66-30 Obama
Snoqualmie: 58-41 Obama
Tukwila: 72-27 Obama
Woodinville: 62-37 Obama
Yarrow Point: 55-44 Obama

(Vashon Island was 80-18 Obama; as a whole, unincorporated was 60-39 Obama)

LD:

1st*: 61-37 Obama
5th: 57-41 Obama
11th: 71-27 Obama
30th: 59-39 Obama
31st*: 50-48 Obama
32nd*: 70-29 Obama
33rd: 64-35 Obama
34th: 78-21 Obama
36th: 84-15 Obama
37th: 86-13 Obama
41st: 64-35 Obama
43rd: 89-10 Obama
45th: 61-38 Obama
46th: 83-16 Obama
47th: 56-43 Obama
48th: 64-35 Obama

Final CD:

1st: 62-36 Obama
2nd: 56-42 Obama
3rd: 52-46 Obama
4th: 58-40 McCain
5th: 51-46 McCain
6th: 57-41 Obama
7th: 84-15 Obama
8th: 57-42 Obama
9th: 59-39 Obama

Uber cool!!!

Wait to hear the phrase "Seattle Liberals" replace "San Fransisco Liberals" on O'Reilly.

Those numbers from Bellevue and Renton are extremely bad news for national Republicans...

It will be hard to see how a national ticket can be competitive in the NW again with numbers like these from suburban Seattle and Portland.

[NOVA Green]

Seattle neighborhood results:

Obama
1. Mann (Central District 23rd Ave/MLK) - 96.05%
2. Madrona - 93.76%
3. Minor (Central District 12th/23rd) - 93.73%
4. Broadway - 93.65%
5. Stevens (Cap Hill 15th Ave) - 92.37%
6. Leschi - 91.50%
7. Fremont - 90.73%
8. Mt. Baker - 90.35%
9. Atlantic - 90.24%
10. Phinney Ridge - 89.96%
...
84. Alki - 76.24%
85. Southeast Magnolia - 76.11%
86. Arbor Heights - 74.57%
87. Madison Park - 71.09%
88. Briarcliff - 70.39%

McCain
1. Briarcliff - 28.70%
2. Madison Park - 27.89%
3. Arbor Heights - 23.98%
4. Southeast Magnolia - 22.73%
5. Alki - 22.34%
6. Laurelhurst - 22.50%
7. North Beach/Blue Ridge - 21.92%
8. Fauntleroy - 21.19%
9. View Ridge - 21.08%
10. Pike Market - 20.90%
...
84. Stevens - 6.58%
85. Madrona - 5.38%
86. Minor - 4.74%
87. Broadway - 4.72%
88. Mann - 2.68%

Gregoire
1. Mann - 93.11%
2. Minor - 91.96%
3. Broadway - 91.91%
4. Stevens - 89.06%
5. Madrona - 88.71%
6. Atlantic - 88.37%
7. Columbia City - 87.72%
8. Wallingford - 86.78%
9. Leschi - 86.75%
10. Phinney Ridge - 86.61%

Rossi
1. Madison Park - 39.29%
2. Briarcliff - 37.40%
3. Laurelhurst - 32.52%
4. Southeast Magnolia - 30.71%
5. Arbor Heights - 30.19%
6. Alki - 29.70%
7. North Beach/Blue Ridge - 29.53%
8. View Ridge - 29.15%
9. Windermere - 28.82%
10. Pike Market - 28.53%

King County Charter Amendment No. 2 - Homosexual Discrimination
Yes
1. Broadway - 92.81%
2. Stevens - 89.98%
3. Fremont - 89.90%
4. Minor - 89.71%
5. Eastlake - 88.47%
6. Wallingford - 88.26%
7. Phinney Ridge - 88.00%
8. Montlake - 87.58%
9. Madrona - 87.30%
10. West Woodland - 87.12%

No
1. Rainier View - 30.49%
2. Briarcliff - 27.45%
3. Arbor Heights - 27.35%
4. South Beacon Hill/Holly Park - 26.01%
5. South Delridge - 25.80%
6. Rainier Beach - 25.48%
7. Madison Park - 25.37%
8. Brighton - 24.47%
9. South Park - 24.15%
10. Highland Park - 23.94%

Interestingly, the two blackest Seattle neighborhoods (~40%), the Central District districts of Mann and Minor, were strongly for this (86.7% and 89.7%, respectively).

Request: Seward Park.... I want to see how the Orthodox Jewish population in this 'hood went. My sister lives in the neighborhood and I haven't bothered to check King Co. precinct results.

[NOVA Green]

WA_2008_President.xls (3.7 MB)

An easily-understood Excel file that contains results to county, congressional, legislative, municipal and precinct levels.  Enjoy.

Awesome work Alcon!

[NOVA Green]

Since no news is actually happening, random tinkering with returns from Washington state military bases.

In total, 4,230 ballots were cast in military base precincts, up from 4,204 in 2004.

Army
2004: 1,549 ballots; 59-40 Bush
2008: 1,802 ballots; 50-48 Obama
16% turnout increase, Obama swing 21.8%

Air Force
2004: 1,239 ballots; 75-23 Bush
2008: 1,057 ballots; 63-35 McCain
15% turnout decrease, Obama swing 24.0%

Navy
2004: 1,416 ballots; 74-25 Bush
2008: 1,371 ballots; 55-44 McCain
3% turnout decrease, Obama swing 38.1%

So, while McCain bled horribly among all sorts of military voters vs. Bush, his worst losses appear easily to be among Navy voters -- the very branch of service in which he and John Kerry served.  Hah.

Individual base information (2004 results in parentheses, turnout in brackets, Dem swing in red):

Fort Lewis AB (Tacoma): 50-48 Obama (40-59) [+16%] +21.8%

Fairchild AFB (Spokane): 65-34 McCain (21-77) [-10%] +26.0%
McChord AFB (Tacoma): 61-37 McCain (27-72) [-20%] +21.6%

Jackson Park NR (Bremerton): 53-43 Obama (36-63) [-4%] +37.6%
Trident NB (Silverdale): 58-41 McCain (23-76) [-5%] +34.4%
Whidbey NAB (Oak Harbor): 56-42 McCain (22-78) [-2%] +43.0%

OK, now someone think of news that is actually news

Thank you Alcon!

It doesn't surprise me too much that the Navy has swung the most, although I would be interested to see base precinct numbers from the Marines in Camp Pendleton and Fort Bragg between '04 and '08 to get a greater idea of the military swing between branches...

Any ideas of how to construct a more complete "base precinct" analysis? Just wondering if anyone else is covering precincts in other military communities or has access to data that others could filter through?

[NOVA Green]

So, it looks like Seattle is getting a new left-wing populist party: the Seattle People's Party. They're nominating attorney and activist Nikkita Oliver to run against Ed Murray for Mayor.

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/activist-nikkita-oliver-to-run-against-mayor-ed-murray/

http://seattlepeoplesparty.com/

Hmmm.... might need to ping my sibling on this one, since she is right down the road from Rainier Beach in South Seattle, and has been working three jobs for Seattle Indivisible over the past few months throughout the City and Metro, and living up there for about 15 years now.

Still even if she plays well in South Seattle and the U-District, not convinced that she'll be able to take down a fairly popular Mayor in North and West Seattle precincts....

[NOVA Green]

WA has a progressive base but if full of conservative, moderate New Democrats. Look at the caucus representation, there's hardly a progressive in there !

There are definitely quite a few Progressive Democrats in the City of Seattle, and quite frankly likely a significant majority of Democratic voters within the City....

Now will an insurgent challenger take out an extremely progressive mayor of an extremely progressive City, extremely unlikely.

All politics are local, and Seattle is an extremely Progressive City, where many of the divisions are not between Conservative/Moderate Democrats vs Progressive Democrats or even vs Socialists, but rather on relatively local issues of much greater import to the City that actually electorally rejected Donald Trump by a larger landslide than even San Francisco.

Still, want to get my finger on the pulse of the South Seattle Indivisible movement, since if there is a major positive buzz going around the scene it could be an interesting race to watch....

[NOVA Green]

So, it looks like Seattle is getting a new left-wing populist party: the Seattle People's Party. They're nominating attorney and activist Nikkita Oliver to run against Ed Murray for Mayor.

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/activist-nikkita-oliver-to-run-against-mayor-ed-murray/

http://seattlepeoplesparty.com/

Hmmm.... might need to ping my sibling on this one, since she is right down the road from Rainier Beach in South Seattle, and has been working three jobs for Seattle Indivisible over the past few months throughout the City and Metro, and living up there for about 15 years now.

Still even if she plays well in South Seattle and the U-District, not convinced that she'll be able to take down a fairly popular Mayor in North and West Seattle precincts....

I don't know. I think Murray's weaker than he looks. Pretty much every neighborhood has seen a big increase in homeless populations. Homelessness is now probably the number one issue in many seemingly strong Murray neighborhoods like Ballard and Queen Anne. While each has it's own proposed solutions to the problem (usually based on income/wealth), pretty much thinks the buck stops at Murray. It'll depend a lot on who makes it to the general, and it doesn't look like any of the candidates so far are particularly formidable, but I can see someone taking down Murray if they play all their cards right.

So spent about 30 minutes talking with my Sister tonight.... she had to get off the phone to light the candles for Shabbat, so I was not able to talk with her as long I would have liked.

FWIW: Her opinion is that Nikkita is a long-shot, but not unfeasible running against Murray. These sympathies currently run strong in the grass-roots activist groups that she is heavily involved in, especially in South Seattle (Local neighborhood associations & Indivisible chapters).

Homelessness is increasingly becoming a major issue with Seattle politics. Like most other major West Coast cities since the Obama Recovery following the Great Recession (Seattle, Portland, Bay Area, & San Diego), as well as medium sized cities such as Tacoma, Vancouver, Salem, Eugene, Sacramento)...

Arguably homelessness is the major issue in Seattle and Portland these days in municipal politics....

My Sister was one of many observers when the mayor cleared "The Jungle"... despite various promises from Murray over the past few years to provide "alternative housing" for these residents. She went there at 5:30 in the morning to bear witness to the clearing of the camps, that just recently happened. They were not allowed access. They had a National Lawyers Guild observer as part of the team, who was not allowed access.

She said she has seen video footage recorded of the Seattle Police Department slashing the tents of the homeless, and throwing away the limited personal possessions of the local residents, despite the Mayor stating that the sprawling individual tents and community tent areas would be cleared with dignity and respect, with no items of value being needlessly destroyed.

This definitively occurred when "The Jungle" was cleared. Additionally, she told me that local residents for months had been appealing to the City for assistance to resolve issues impacting the community, and that half of the City Council supported many of the resident's recommendations, but that the Mayor was opposed....  Regardless, didn't have as much time to talk on this as I would have liked.

For anyone not familiar with "The Jungle" (And most of y'all on this thread likely are, being how it's all about Washington State), here are a few links.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle_(Seattle)

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/inside-the-grim-world-of-the-jungle-the-caves-sleeping-in-shifts-and-eyeball-eating-rats/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAPp3DXc6n0

Obviously, homelessness is only one of many issues in Seattle politics, but hell we are talking about a City that is actually significantly to the Left of San Francisco these days....

We'll see how this rolls down the line, but Nikkita should do fairly well in South Seattle regardless, and is getting a ton of local progressive activist buzz up there in an extremely activist City.

[NOVA Green]

(continued)

As for what I would do to help solve homelessness, I think expanding the amount of housing drastically would help. An upzone, maybe not in the entire city, but in most of it. Seattle is too suburban in character for such a large metropolis. But of course, we can't do that, because "evil developers!"

Utah has a program where they basically put homeless people in apartment housing, for free. Better they have somewhere safe to stay than sleep in parks or under bridges. If there were, say, more microhousing, there could be places to help place vagrants during transitional periods. It would of course take a few years for all of this housing to come online, so it's not a perfect solution. Seattle is innovative, though, that I truly believe. Cleaning up the infamous "Seattle process" is step one. Everyone and their grandma doesn't need to have their opinion heard four times with an extra study for good measure.

I agree with this exactly. I think one of the biggest economic problems in Seattle is that, while there should logically be a small number of expensive housing options, more for middle income, and lots for low-income, there's a huge drop-off when you go below $2,000/month. I mean, places definitely exist, but demand is so high, and most are in middle class neighborhoods like Wallingford, rather than low-income neighborhoods. One solution to this is to just raise the minimum wage, although there's only so much that can be done in that realm. The other theoretical solution, which King Sweden articulated is to just build thousands and thousands of houses and apartments to push supply up and prices down, so maybe those $2,000/month places might lower their prices. Of course, housing prices rarely actually go down except for during a recession, so there also needs to be a comprehensive subsidy program.

Now, there's also the issue of those who don't want to be moved into an apartment if it comes with strings attached, such as a curfew or drug testing. And I am also of the belief that people have a right to be homeless if they so choose, and you cannot forcibly relocate law-abiding people to a new home against their will. But, I think if we can get prices down low enough to help those who want to buy/rent on their own with a subsidy, and get those who have drug problems the option of going to rehab for free, in conjunction with cracking down on the definitely not-homeless drug dealers operating out of RVs, the number that remain will only be a tiny portion of what we see today, or even what we saw five years ago or so.

Is homelessness by choice a big thing? I have to imagine most homeless are in their position due to various hardships, not because they want to be. I don't know much about it though.

[/b]

Thank you King Sweden!!!

I am currently homeless, along with my wife (Thankfully no children in our current family unit).

This is definitely NOT a choice.....   

The vast majority of the Homeless population in America, are individuals such as myself that lost both jobs and housing at the relatively same time, and next thing you know you have run out of options....

Simply put, the cost of housing is virtually impossible in most major Metro areas of the West Coast for those living, even for those of us living on maximum unemployment benefits.

Imagine the situation for those clearing only $300-350 / Week in Unemployment Insurance in expensive Metro areas such as Seattle/Portland/San Francisco....

No job= almost 0% chance of getting into an apartment, even quite possibly if you have a cosigner that will cover the move-in deposits, etc....

Additionally, once you have been out of work for awhile, usually you get a dramatic collapse in your credit rating, which can preclude housing opportunities, since now you "are considered a risk"....

So what happens when you are out of work and your unemployment benefits start running down and you still haven't got a job?

You have been living in cheap hotels, crashing with friends and family, and drifting from town to town hoping that something will come through, and yet there is no hope.

For individuals without family support networks, those with major mental illness issues, those with substance abuse issues, this problem is even more pronounced.

My Wife of ten years was homeless with five children living in a campground outside of Golden, Colorado (Coors Country) leaving a physically abusive relationship from her Ex-Husband for 4-5 months.

She became a political activist against the HUD policies and the political structure of the city of Denver in the late '80s/early '90s.

Sure, there are plenty of problems with "The Jungle", but I am yet to be convinced of the merits of the Mayor's position.... there are a ton of means of addressing issues such as the lack of affordable housing, and providing immediate housing that don't involve slashing the tents of the homeless, banning individuals camping in cars, etc....

Ultimately this is a Federal Problem, since cities alone can't cover the costs.... I am extremely skeptical that we will see any help on this under the current administration, let alone any other administration over the past 40+ years...

There are various solutions that cities can potentially provide, but these are all ultimately band-aids patching over massive injuries....

http://www.oregonlive.com/hg/index.ssf/2014/11/tiny_houses_for_homeless.html

[NOVA Green]

Thanks KS!!!

Wasn't in any way shape or form trying to jack the thread.

Aside from my individual situation, which will likely soon be resolved (Fingers crossed), there is a much larger problem regarding the lack of access to affordable housing in the larger cities of the West Coast, combined with a lack of local level resources to seriously address an issue which in many ways should actually fall more under resourcing and programs at the Federal Level (HUD) combined with State level programs to address the issue.

What inevitably happens in cities like Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco, as well as many others, is that  local issues of homelessness become politicized, even though the overwhelming majority of Mayors and City Council members, etc are extremely vocal on such items, there simply aren't the local mechanisms and funding to be able to address one of the major causes, which is the effective 1.5x increase following the "Economic Recovery".

No idea how this will play out at all in the upcoming Mayoral elections in Seattle, but this issue was definitely a big deal in the Portland Mayoral and City Council Elections in the 2016 GE, so definitely something to watch as a policy item that could impact the perception of an extremely Liberal Democratic Mayor in an extremely Progressive Democratic City.

(Sits down and goes back to "lurk" mode)

Y'all are great, in fact some of my favorite posters on the Forum and total experts and gurus on all aspects of Washington State politics! I rarely comment on this subthread for that very reason---

What I do believe is she will do quite well in South Seattle and possibly West Seattle, but not so sure about elsewhere in the City, or the potential to create a majority coalition against a fairly popular Mayor.

[NOVA Green]

Yikes. This could be big... I hope this doesn't mean Nikkita Oliver comes out as the front runner in whatever happens next.

Wow--- this sounds potentially huge....

Not sure what your issue is with Nikkita, but my sister finally met her a few weeks back in one of the Indivisible meetings and/or Homeless activist meetings she has been involved in, and her street cred is definitely expanding in leaps and bounds among the energized base of the Democratic Party in Seattle...

Do you really think a Republican will will win the mayoral election in Seattle, or do you have legitimate concerns regarding her capability to lead the City compared to the other contenders?