Nine Tectonic Shifts in Washington State Politics

A pair of Republican-leaning pollsters reported a neck-and-neck Washington Senate race in 2022. Fox News host Sean Hannity said memorably, “We want that seat.” Republicans didn’t get it, and Democratic Sen. Patty Murray was reelected by a 441,000-vote margin.

In the 1960s to the early 1980s, Washington consistently elected Republicans to top statewide offices. Since then, the Evergreen State has elected a succession of Democrats to these top positions. It most recently elected a GOP governor way back in 1980. Its last Republican senator was elected in 1994, and Ronald Reagan was the last GOP presidential candidate to carry the state. 

The state has experienced tectonic shifts in my lifetime. Among them:

1. King County has gone from competitive to solidly Democratic. To be sure, Trump signs can be spotted on such highways as SR 269 from Renton to Enumclaw. But suburban and exurban districts, once centers of Republican strength, are now consistently sending Democrats to the Legislature. The 8^th District seat in Congress, in GOP hands for 36 years, fell to Democrat Dr. Kim Schrier in 2018.
2. This political transformation coincides with an economic overhaul. A technology-driven workforce has brought a younger, more diverse population to the voting rolls. Sen. Slade Gorton, the state’s most recent Republican senator, boasted about winning in 1994 while losing King County. On the other hand, he lost King County by 150,000 votes in 2000, and consequently lost his seat to Sen. Maria Cantwell. 
3. The margin in presidential races has climbed to half-a-million votes. A Democrat can lose 31-32 of the state’s 39 counties and still win or make the November ballot. The Democratic trend has flipped the 41st, 45th, 47^th and 48^th Districts in the Legislature.
4. Voters do not like Donald Trump, with consequences down-ballot.  Democrats captured control of the Washington State Senate in a special election two years into Trump’s term. In 2022, House Republican Leader J.T. Wilcox recruited a list of eight top-notch challengers in Democrat-held districts. All of them were defeated.
5. The “boa constrictor strategy” of surrounding King County worked for Sen. Gorton in 2000 but no longer drives state politics. A “red wave” was forecast here and nationwide in 2022. Instead, Democrats gained a seat in the State Senate, another in the State House of Representatives, and elected U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez in Southwest Washington’s 3^rd Congressional District. Murray won her sixth term with more than 57 percent of the vote.
6. The state’s “rust belt” has turned red. A half-century ago, Grays Harbor and Pacific Counties were the state’s only locales to back Sen. George McGovern for president. McGovern paid four visits to Washington, to no avail statewide. The two counties, plus surrounding areas in Southwest Washington’s 19^th District, have now sent Republicans to the Legislature and GOP county commissioners to the courthouse. Gov. Jay Inslee has been unable to capture 40 percent of the vote in Cowlitz County. (No matter. He’s piled up a big majority in King County.)
7. The picture is much the same in Oregon. The Beaver State has been electing Democratic governors since 1986. The long-running duo of GOP Senators Mark Hatfield and Bob Packwood – who didn’t much like each other – has been replaced by two Democrats. How come?  Republicans lead in statewide tabulations until populous Multnomah County (Portland) reports its vote totals. 
8. Rural Washington votes Republican. The moderate conservative Democrat – once a staple of state politics – has become as endangered as the spotted owl. The Dems now control just one district in Eastern Washington, one in downtown Spokane. Not that it matters.  The Republicans can pile up a 10,000-plus majority in Lewis County, but Seattle and Bellevue vastly outpoll Centralia and Chehalis. A 70 percent margin in King County has sent Democrats to Congress and the statehouse. Inslee has skipped the Pacific County Democrats’ annual crab feed, oldest continuous political event in the state, and stopped even sending goofy greetings to the gathering. The county doesn’t really count in a state whose politics is driven by “Space Needle Washington,” places that can be seen from the Seattle landmark.
9. Moderate Republicans are an equally endangered species. The state used to be accustomed to Gov. (and Sen.) Dan Evans championing creation of wilderness areas and a North Cascades National Park, and Slade Gorton challenging Big Oil on gas prices. Warnings by Gorton once caused an angry Reagan to snap his pencil at a White House meeting. Just as moderate Democrats have disappeared, so have urban Republicans. Dan Evans had his start as a 43^rd District state legislator from north Seattle. Ditto Slade Gorton, in 1958, a Republican victor in a solidly Democratic year. The GOP no longer controls a single statewide elected office.

The state’s initial package of environmental laws, including the creation of a state Department of Ecology, was championed by then-Gov. Evans, with several leading legislative Democrats leading the opposition. Nowadays, an initiative repealing the state’s landmark Climate Commitment Act is championed by GOP state chairman, Rep. Jim Walsh,, R-Aberdeen.  

Even so, the Republicans have come close, with Christine Gregoire eking out a 131-vote victory over Dino Rossi in a 2004 gubernatorial election that ended up being fought out in court. But Rossi went on to lose a 2008 rematch and subsequent contests for the Senate (against Sen. Murray) and Congress.

Of course, it is impossible to forecast the future. The GOP is fielding a viable candidate for Governor in seven-term U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert. But he is facing Attorney General Bob Ferguson. And nobody outworks Bob Ferguson, who would be the state’s sixth consecutive Democratic governor.