The chairwoman of the Clark County Democrats, Deanna Pauli-Hammond, echoed her state party’s comments. “I’m thankful this didn’t pass,” she said. “We are a caucus state and there’s no reason to move the primary up.”
Kenny Smith, chairman of the Clark County Republican Party, said he likes the idea of changing the primary date. Doing so would have allowed Washington state to weigh in sooner on the many Republican candidates in the 2016 presidential election, Smith said.
–Lauren Dake
OLYMPIA — Washington state’s presidential primary date is still scheduled to be held in late May after Democrats on Tuesday refused to support moving the statewide contest to an earlier date, as Secretary of State Kim Wyman and others Republican officials had requested.
A move to change the May 24 primary date to March 8, just a week after the round of “Super Tuesday” primaries across the country, failed to get the two-thirds vote required by the Presidential Primary Date Selection Committee at its meeting in SeaTac, Washington, with the four Democrats on the committee saying it would cause too much confusion for Democratic voters. A second vote seeking to change the date to March 22 also failed.
The chairwoman of the Clark County Democrats, Deanna Pauli-Hammond, echoed her state party's comments. "I'm thankful this didn't pass," she said. "We are a caucus state and there's no reason to move the primary up."
Kenny Smith, chairman of the Clark County Republican Party, said he likes the idea of changing the primary date. Doing so would have allowed Washington state to weigh in sooner on the many Republican candidates in the 2016 presidential election, Smith said.
--Lauren Dake
Currently, Washington has both a presidential primary and a caucus system, but Democrats ignore the primary and use only the caucus system to allocate their delegates to candidates at the national convention. Rules of the Democratic National Committee don’t allow the state party to split the allocation of delegates between the caucuses and the primary, as the state Republicans have done in the past. The last time the presidential primary occurred, in 2008, state Republicans allocated about half of their delegates from the primary, half from the caucuses.
The presidential primary has been canceled twice by the Legislature, most recently in 2012, for budgetary reasons.
Wyman had argued that regardless of whether or not the state parties decided to use the results of the primary to allocate their convention delegates, an earlier primary would make the state more relevant as the buzz for the presidential election increases. Voters would benefit from more national attention to the state, especially if it drew more candidates to publicly campaign in the state, she said.
“Voters expect that they have a role in this process, and they expect that they’re going to get to vote on their presidential nominee in the spring of 2016,” she said.
But Democratic Party Chairman Jaxon Ravens said that Democrats already have a role in the process, by participating in the traditional caucuses, where voters gather for a day at locations across the state to discuss candidates and cast their vote. Next year’s Democratic caucus is set for March 26. Republicans have not yet set a date for their caucuses. The results of both caucuses are ultimately later confirmed at district, county and state conventions that usually occur between April and June.
For Democrats, the primary is a meaningless straw poll, he said.
“It actually will not have any determination on how we allocate our delegates,” Ravens told Wyman. “It does not provide the value of which you speak.”
Ravens and state Senate Democratic leader Sharon Nelson also argued voters would be confused by the primary date being moved before the caucuses.
“They will think they are choosing delegates, and they are not under our process,” Nelson said. “This will create a confusion that I don’t think benefits the citizens of the state.”
The Republican members of the committee argued that caucus-goers are already very interested in the upcoming election, and are paying close attention.
“I don’t think they’re confused at all,” Republican Party Vice Chairman Jim Walsh said. “I think the desire for our primary to be live, as it were, in the process is something they get very well. I think voters are pretty savvy.”
Wyman noted that while 300,000 people participated in the party caucuses in 2008, 1.5 million voters voted in the presidential primary.
“Our job is to engage voters and give them a seat at the table to be part of that meaningful process,” she said. “At the end of the day, I still see value in giving people a chance to voice their opinion and vote in an election if it’s going to be meaningful.”
