(not really a presidential election result, but whatever)
In the 1994 GOP wave, the Democrats lost a lot of seats across the country, but they were absolutely crushed in Washington state, with five incumbents losing re-election and one open seat flipping, causing the delegation to swing from 8-1 Democratic to 7-2 Republican, flipping almost the entire delegation. Democrats weren't crushed to nearly this extent in any other state. Is there a story behind this?
Well, Washington voters approved term limits for federal office holders via initiative. Foley challenged this and it was overturned. Nethercutt campaigned almost exclusively on this and was a huge supporter of term limits. He vowed to only serve three terms. It helped push him over 50%. Of course, being a typical Republican scumbag, he ended up serving for five terms before Patty put him in his place when he ran for Senate.
It was also a bit of a political realignment of Washington... Eastern Washington had been fairly friendly to the Democrats in the past, often more than the Puget Sound region. It started noticeably trending to the Republicans in the 1960s. Just like 1994 was symbolic nationally as being a major turning point in the South finally falling to the Republicans for good, it was also the end of the Democrats in Eastern Washington.
Inslee, Cantwell, and Kriedler were all freshmen (elected in 1992) and certainly had not become well established. Cantwell and Kriedler both lost by pretty narrow margins, too.
WA-2 was an open seat, and WA-3 is the kind of district you would expect to flip in a landslide election.
