So much for conspiracy theorists, election deniers (most of them anyway) and MAGA rightists. All of those things didn’t go well at all in Tuesday’s vote count in the Washington primary. Overall, voters in this state seemed to reject the conventional wisdom that this would be the first good year for Republicans here since 2014. “Republican narratives busted,” tweeted Andrew Villeneuve of the Northwest Progressive Institute, who has insisted for months that local polls did not support the media-fueled idea that there would be a conservative backlash in this state . There still could be, of course, with three months to go until November’s general election. A lot can happen, including the totals for this primary can and will change in the coming days as more votes are counted. But Tuesday’s early results showed no signs of any kind of tidal change in our local, heavily blue-collar politics. If anything, voters were signaling that they just want a break from all the insanity. Voters showed no inclination to experiment with either party’s margins. MAGA candidates fought on the right, while the Democratic Socialists made no dent on the left. Both of former President Donald Trump’s favored candidates in the state have been trailing, for example, and may not make it past the first two primaries. Former GOP gubernatorial candidate Loren Culp, in Central Washington, was third in the 4th Congressional District, as was Fox News regular and newcomer Joe Kent, in southwest Washington’s 3rd District. In both cases, Trump had sought revenge against incumbent GOP members of Congress who voted to impeach him for his role in the 2021 Capitol uprising. Those incumbents, Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Sunnyside, and Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Camas, narrowly missed re-election. (Both were only about 25%). But both are capable of making it through a primary challenge and into a general election against a Democratic challenger. Culp and Kent were total election deniers, insisting that Trump won in 2020. (Culp still incredibly insists that he won the governor’s race against incumbent Jay Inslee.) The craziness element may have been too heavy for the voters. They were logical candidates. Out: Candidates who invent their own realities. Defeated a number of election conspiracy theorists, including Tamborine Borrelli, who filed a series of bogus 2020 election lawsuits. Rep. Brad Klippert, R-Kennewick, who attended a conference on “stolen elections” hosted by the My Pillow guy and then billed taxpayers for the trip. Vicki Kraft, R-Vancouver, who also went to that convention. and Amber Krabach, a Republican state House candidate on the Eastside who made news recently for trying to rig the polls. For all the talk that incumbent Democrats like Rep. Kim Schrier, D-Issaquah, and U.S. Sen. Patty Murray may be in trouble, both easily outspent their opponents. In particular, Schrier is doing better than in her last qualifier in 2020. That doesn’t mean she’s a lock come November. But that means no red wave hit her. “I think six weeks ago the headwinds against Democrats were stronger than they are today,” Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Everett, told the Times. What happened six weeks ago? The US Supreme Court he went on a conservative roll, rejecting abortion rights, allowing school prayer, and so on. There’s a rule of thumb among election analysts that if you add up the vote share for the parties in each of our open primary contests, it’s a decent guide to which side will win that race in November. It’s not perfect, but as a general guide, it captures the overall mood. Using this technique in Tuesday’s preliminary results shows that despite high inflation, worries about crime and President Joe Biden’s low approval ratings, Democrats are doing as usual, particularly in tough suburbs. Case in point: Republicans spent heavily targeting a number of legislative districts in suburban King and Snohomish counties, where the GOP had disappeared in the Trump years. Still, Democrats were way ahead Tuesday on all of this. In the 44th in Snohomish County, Democrats took 54% to 59% of the total vote. In the 47th in King, they were taking 52% to 56%, and in the 45th in the Eastside, Democrats were a whopping 66% to 72%. Biden, like Trump before him, was supposed to be a drag on his party. It is not normal for a party to run so far ahead of its president’s low approval ratings. If in this environment Republicans can’t get a red wave, a swell, or even a ripple, it’s hard to see how they’ll ever fight back in this situation. Danny Westneat: [email protected]; Danny Westneat takes a look at the news, people and politics of the Puget Sound region.
