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Tuesday, March 19, 2024
March 19, 2024

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Clinton, Trump win Washington’s presidential primary

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OLYMPIA — Donald Trump handily won Washington state’s Republican presidential primary Tuesday, even as he shared the ballot with three other candidates who had already dropped out of the contest.

As counties started posting their results shortly after 8 p.m., Trump took a commanding lead with 76 percent of the vote, followed by John Kasich and Ted Cruz, with 10 percent each. Ben Carson garnered 4 percent of the vote in early returns.

Even though Trump is the only candidate remaining in the GOP contest, Kasich and Cruz were still on the ballot because they suspended their campaigns after the ballots were printed. Carson’s name also appeared because he never submitted a withdrawal of candidacy.

Republicans in Washington state will allocate all 44 delegates to their national convention based on the primary results.

In early returns, county backs Trump, Clinton

Clark County Republican voters threw most of their support behind Donald Trump in Tuesday’s presidential primary, while Clark County Democrats showed a very slight inclination for Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders, according to the first batch of election results released Tuesday night.

Of the Clark County Democrats voting in the primary, 49.79 percent supported Sanders and 49.85 percent supported Clinton, the national front-runner in the race for her party’s nomination. 

Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee, but John Kasich, Ted Cruz and Ben Carson remained on the ballot for Washington voters. In Clark County, 75.71 percent of Republicans who voted picked Trump, 9.41percent chose Cruz, 9.46 percent voted for Kasich and 3.27 selected Carson. Kasich, Cruz and Carson have dropped out of the race.

Tuesday night, the Clark County Elections Office tallied 42,864 ballots cast by Democrats and 37,565 ballots cast by Republicans. Clark County’s voter turnout for the primary was at 31 percent, but that number is expected to increase as more ballots are received in the coming days.

Republicans will use the election results to allocate all of their 44 state delegates to the national convention. The Democratic Party won’t use the election results to allocate any of its state delegates, choosing to rely instead on its caucus system. Sanders emerged the clear winner in Washington state during caucuses earlier this year.

In Washington’s presidential primary, voters were required to declare a party affiliation on their ballot envelope.

— Stevie Mathieu

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton defeated Sanders. She was winning 54 percent to 46 percent in early returns; however the results don’t affect the allocation of delegates.

Washington has both a presidential primary and a caucus system, but Democrats will ignore the primary results, having chosen to keep using the party caucus system to allocate their delegates. Bernie Sanders handily won the Democratic caucuses in March. Following the congressional district caucuses over the weekend, a spokesman for the state Democratic Party said 74 delegates will go to Sanders and 27 to Clinton.

About 1.3 million voters had already sent in their ballots prior to Tuesday’s election. Election officials said that as of Tuesday evening, 31 percent of voters have returned their ballot. There are more than 4 million registered voters in Washington state, who can either vote by mail or by dropping their ballot at an election drop box.

The record number of presidential primary ballots counted in Washington was nearly 1.4 million in 2008, according to the secretary of state’s office. The record percentage return was 42.6 in 2000. Both of those elections were held in February. Under state law, the presidential primary is held on the fourth Tuesday of May, unless the parties agree to change it, which they did in both of those years.

Last year, Republican Secretary of State Kim Wyman pushed to have this year’s primary moved to March, but the move, opposed by Democrats, failed to get the two-thirds vote required by the Presidential Primary Date Selection Committee.

The inevitability of the Republican race doesn’t sit well with some voters who say they are not ready to support Trump.

Daniel Emborg said Tuesday he voted for Cruz. Emborg, who was depositing his ballot at a drop box in Everett, said if Trump is the GOP nominee, he will vote for a third-party candidate.

However, Tom Lasswell said he voted for Trump because “you need to instigate change.”

Clark County results

Democrats

H. Clinton - 21,367 - 49.85%

B. Sanders  - 21,340 - 49.79%

Republicans

B. Carson - 1,227 - 3.27%

T. Cruz - 3,536 - 9.41%

J. Kasich - 3,554 - 9.46%

D. Trump - 28,441 - 75.71%

Voter turnout: 31%

“I like Ted Cruz, but I believe Donald Trump can pull this together, and I’m willing to give him a chance,” he said.

Cornell Clayton, director of the Foley Institute for Public Policy at Washington State University, said even though the Democratic primary is nothing more than a poll, there’s still value for the campaign that prevails.

“They’re going to tout this as the will of the people,” he said.   

State Republicans will send 44 delegates to the July national convention in Cleveland. They were chosen over the weekend at the state Republican convention.

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