In our Reality Check stories, journalists at McClatchy’s four Washington state publications seek to hold the powerful accountable and find answers to critical questions in our community. Read more: The Bellingham Herald, The News Tribune, The Olympian, Tri-City Herald.
In the weeks after the 2024 election, both of Washington state’s political parties have been optimistic about the results. And, to varying degrees, they’ve each made compelling points.
Although the state’s final results won’t be certified until early December, it appears that President-elect Donald Trump performed slightly better in Washington state compared with 2020.
“WA turns redder, despite faulty media reports that said otherwise,” the headline for the Washington GOP’s Nov. 20 news release reads.
Washington Democrats, meanwhile, have celebrated wins and note that their party came out mostly unscathed by the broader national leap toward Trump.
How did Trump perform in WA?
Democratic nominee Kamala Harris lost the White House, but she easily secured Washington state’s 12 electoral votes. At the same time, as of Wednesday morning, Trump has received a marginally larger share of support here than he did in 2020.
Last week, Ballotpedia put the president-elect’s gain in Washington at +0.7 percentage points — the smallest swing toward Trump in the nation, but a swing nonetheless. The Cook Political Report website has placed the shift even higher at +1.0 percentage points.
Data from the Washington Secretary of State’s office, last updated Nov. 26, showed Trump claiming 39.01% of the vote. That’s a difference of +0.24 percentage points compared with the previous election.
However, four years ago, Trump collected about 1.6 million votes in Washington state while Democrat Joe Biden received under 2.4 million. This election, ballots cast in the presidential election were down slightly, with Trump accruing roughly 1.5 million votes to Harris’ more than 2.2 million.
Put another way, Trump’s total in Washington slumped by close to 54,000 votes — but the Democratic nominee saw a larger drop of nearly 124,000 votes.
What else has WA GOP said about 2024?
Washington GOP Chairman Jim Walsh, a longtime state representative from Aberdeen, told McClatchy that Trump has always been a polarizing figure. Republicans this year better managed the “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” a term that Walsh defined as Democrats’ visceral and irrational response to the president-elect.
Walsh emphasized that Trump’s performance in Washington improved, even if only a bit. Republican candidates in statewide executive match-ups fared better, too, including in the races for public lands commissioner and state attorney general, he added.
For instance, this year’s GOP candidate for commissioner of public lands, Jaime Beutler Herrera, earned about 47.2% of the vote. It’s about a 4-percentage-point spike over the previous conservative hopeful’s 43.2% four years prior.
“So, it’s improving,” Walsh said. “I mean, we’re not at 51% yet, but we’re marching up through the 40s.”
Plus voters passed the conservative-backed Initiative 2066, which acts to protect natural-gas use in homes and businesses.
The Washington Dems have broadcast on social media that the state saw the strongest returns for Democrats across the country.
Asked to respond, Walsh replied: “Well, I mean, they’re starting with a royal flush in their hand and posting they didn’t screw it up. Congratulations.
“They have immense institutional advantages in this state currently, and we are grindingly, gradually, incrementally reducing their institutional advantages,” he continued. “But for the moment, they still have those advantages.”
How did Washington Democrats do?
The Washington Democratic Party is thrilled with its statewide performance, said spokesperson Stephen Reed.
Open governor’s races tend to be quite tight, Reed said, yet Democrat Bob Ferguson won by basically the same margin that Gov. Jay Inslee enjoyed in 2020. To Reed, it shows that what the Dems are doing is working for Washington residents.
On the other hand, Reed said the state’s GOP had the worst night of any Republican Party nationwide, “and no amount of spin that they give you is going to overcome that.”
He added: “What is clear is that Washington state withstood a shift that happened across the country.”
State House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon of West Seattle noted that the Democrats prevailed in every statewide race.
For the second election in a row, every Democratic incumbent in the state House and Senate won reelection, Fitzgibbon told McClatchy. The Dems are also poised to gain a seat in each chamber.
The Democrats also defeated three of four Republican-backed initiatives by “pretty considerable margins,” Fitzgibbon said. Voters affirmed the work of Democratic legislators in Olympia, he added: “Which is not to say that we’re perfect or that we’ve solved every problem, but that we’re working on the right things, and that we should continue to work on those things.”
Washington residents are worried about rising costs, including in terms of health care, and lawmakers have taken that seriously, Fitzgibbon said. The Democrat-led state Legislature capped insulin prices before the federal government took action and has made strides toward boosting housing affordability, for example.
“Our candidates and our incumbents had a lot to talk about when their voters were asking them, ‘What are you doing about the cost of living?’” Fitzgibbon said. “And I think that that paid off.”
Trump’s return
The West Coast acts as the foundation of the Democratic Party in national elections, particularly presidential ones, said Cal Jillson, political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Texas. Moving a point one way or the other doesn’t change that.
Washington state has leaned increasingly leftward in the past couple election cycles, he said. Still, the ideological wall between rural, red-voting Eastern Washington and urban, blue-voting Western Washington remains standing.
Trump is well-attuned to popular fears and concerns, Jillson said. Case in point: illegal immigration.
“Anybody who feels that immigration is a threat to their own economic success, particularly in an era when inflation is eating into people’s purchasing power, it’s going to scare the bejeebers out of them,” Jillson continued. “And that opens the door to Trump claiming that he can fix it.”
Jillson also weighed in on a seemingly incongruous trend.
The Bronx in New York saw a jump in support for Trump while some of those same voters helped re-elect progressive firebrand U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Why? Both Trump and AOC are populists — albeit on opposite ends of the spectrum — who aren’t afraid to challenge the status quo, Jillson said in part.
Here in Olympia, a Republican hasn’t occupied the governor’s mansion since the 1980s. Other states along the West Coast have turned a deeper shade of blue, too, Jillson said.
“Republicans will do better on one election cycle, a little bit worse in the next,” he added. “But these are blue states.”
