Washington 2020: The Calm Before the Drizzle

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Patty Murray has been endorsed by the Spokane Spokesman-Review:

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2010/oct/24/editorial-on-balance-murray-is-better-choice-for/

It is not a good sign for Rossi that he could not win the endorsement of a conservative paper in a high population conservative area in a GOP favored political environment.

wtf wtf wtf

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Where can I find detailed precinct level results for King County?

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Where can I find detailed precinct level results for King County?

The canvass can be downloaded here, and there's a new data browser here apparently...which is spartan, but not bad if you don't want to open the CSV in Excel.

I'm also happy to help/look stuff up.

Other tools:

* Precinct finder via Google Maps (whole state)

* Precinct maps by LD (whole state)

* Old King County precincts by ID/list

The new data browser works alright for me and the CSV in excel looks awful. Thanks for the help! I looked all over their website for this and still couldn't find it for some reason. Oh and if you're interested in any Idaho data for whatever reason check here: http://www.sos.idaho.gov/elect/results.htm

They have some decently organized Excel files with precinct level results. I'm sure you already knew this but it's somewhat interesting for primaries at least.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

After looking at election results in Spokane, I've come to two conclusions: Spokane is more Democratic than most people think, there's just too many rural areas inside of the county that inflate Republican margins. My other conclusion is that it would be a great bellwether country for the nation if the rural areas could be cut out. It has a good mix of old working class neighborhoods, old lower and upper middle class neighborhoods and new suburban developments that reflect US politics.

Oh and Chris Marr was really, really doomed in 2010.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

After looking at election results in Spokane, I've come to two conclusions: Spokane is more Democratic than most people think, there's just too many rural areas inside of the county that inflate Republican margins. My other conclusion is that it would be a great bellwether country for the nation if the rural areas could be cut out. It has a good mix of old working class neighborhoods, old lower and upper middle class neighborhoods and new suburban developments that reflect US politics.

Oh and Chris Marr was really, really doomed in 2010.

The city itself leans D, sure. The suburbs (like Spokane Valley) are very Republican though. I would guess they have more to do with making the county R than the rural areas, though I'm sure those contribute, too.

I did some calculations and without the rural areas, Murray would have got 46 to 47% depending on your definition of rural compared to the 43.7% she got. I'd argue that the rural areas are what make Spokane County lean R as opposed to a tossup/almost bellwether county though.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

For what it's worth: I saw a few Hadian signs in Spokane.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

I was browsing 2008 precinct results for fun and I noticed that Brad Owen underperformed dramatically in Capitol Hill. Marcia McCraw routinely received 20% in precincts that gave McCain between 1 and 5% of the vote. She did better than McKenna and Reed. Is the Stranger really that influential in Seattle or did she wage an active campaign aimed at cultural liberals?

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

That's pretty crazy, all things considered. I'd have to assume that most of the 1/5th of McCraw/Obama voters are ultra-progressive and aren't of the moderate hero variety. That means something like 20% of capitol hill are avid readers of the editorial pages of a quirky alt-newspaper and actually its advice into consideration. Seattle is weird man.

I'd probably cast a protest vote for McCraw because Brad Owen is a douchenozzle and to tell people that I've voted for a Republican before in an attempt to bolster my "fair and balanced" credentials.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

It should be interesting to see how the Socialist Alternative candidate Sawant does in the race for the 43rd. I probably wouldn't vote for her because her positions are ludicrous (advocated nationalizing Boeing wtf) even though she's an econ professor.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

There's a good chance that DelBene is more left-wing than she appears: she graduated from Reed College in the days when its unofficial motto ("communism, atheism and free love") was far closer to the truth than it is today and she makes no real mention of a religious affiliation on her page. Her profile is one of an inoffensive moderate but her issue positions are that of a standard progressive.

Nominate her, please. Ruderman is also a good choice but the anti-Burners need to unite.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Finally, a batch of primary elections I'm actually excited about!

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

The 3rd district primary map is very stereotypical:


Green - Marcus Riccelli
Red - Bob Apple
Yellow - Jon Snyder
Blue - Tim Benn

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Can you say a little more about that?  I know Marcus is a pretty progressive guy, and a former Young Democrats high muckamuck, and Apple is a conservative Dem on City Council...but what about Jon Snyder?

Jon Snyder is a stereotypical crunchy progressive: he went to Evergreen, is a strong advocate of gay rights (his mom is lesbian), and was the chair of a local progressive radio station. If you check his website you'll know what I mean: everything about him is a latte liberal stereotype. He only performed well in the south hill and around the core of the city. Bob Apple's pattern of support works the same way: he only performed well in blue collar Spokane but outside of his core, he did very poorly. I've noticed that Apple's signs were nearly exclusively located in the most depressed area of Spokane.

Riccelli reminds me of Josh Mandel: he sounds and looks far younger than he is.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Results for Evergreen State College (plus a neighboring, student-heavy precinct):

Obama 225
Stein 26
Romney 13
Johnson 5
Anderson 3

lawl.

If Portland had smaller precincts, Reed's precinct would be even worse for Romney (10 at the most).

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Trots in Portland are the worst and always wear flatcaps even though they have no relation to the European working class.