The following is presented as part of The Columbian’s Opinion content, which offers a point of view in order to provoke thought and debate of civic issues. Opinions represent the viewpoint of the author. Unsigned editorials represent the consensus opinion of The Columbian’s editorial board, which operates independently of the news department.
Because, in attempting to assess last week’s primary election, we decided to approach it from this angle: Is Clark County more red or blue? That involves a few numbers and a spreadsheet and, heck, maybe even a slide rule; we’re not smart enough to figure this stuff in our head.
As a whole, of course, Washington is about as blue as a 1903 Picasso. We haven’t elected a Republican governor since 1980, and nine of the 10 partisan positions decided by statewide vote are currently held by a Democrat.
This is no secret. It’s also no secret the liberal enclave that is the Puget Sound region dominates statewide elections by virtue of its sheer girth. In politics, Seattle is the proverbial 800-pound gorilla that sits wherever it wants and elects whomever it wishes. So where does that leave Clark County?
Well, we have a county council that consists of four Republicans plus a county chair who is a longtime Republican yet ran for that office while professing no party preference. And, well, from the three legislative districts located primarily within the county, there are six Republicans in the Legislature alongside three Democrats. And, well, Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler has been elected to Congress three times while winning 58 percent of the votes cast in the county.
So, does that mean Clark County is as red as Seattle is blue? Let’s find out.
In competitive races during Tuesday’s primary, the Clark County electorate cast 414,331 votes for Republicans and 413,380 for Democrats (through Thursday’s count). You can’t get much more purple than that.
A couple caveats: These numbers do not include races in which one of the parties did not field a candidate, but they do count those running as “independent Democrats.” For example, in the three races in the 20th Legislative District, which stretches into north Clark County, none of the Republican incumbents were challenged, so those races are not counted. For another example, Democratic state Attorney General Bob Ferguson faced only a Libertarian opponent, so his 42,359 votes in Clark County are not included.
With Ferguson’s votes not being counted, in the two federal positions on the ballot (seats held by Herrera Beutler and Sen. Patty Murray), plus the eight partisan state executive positions, Clark County voters cast 305,641 votes for Democrats and 293,126 for Republicans. That’s 51.0 percent for Democrats — a result that likely is predictable because nearly all of the incumbents in those races are Democrats.
But in partisan local races such as for the state Legislature and the Clark County council, local voters favored Republicans 53 percent of the time when they had a choice — 121,205 to 107,739.
Low turnout is damaging
The lesson could be in the impact of Seattle’s hold on statewide politics. The region is populous enough to ensure that plenty of Democrats get elected, and the inherent advantage held by incumbents then makes that a self-fulfilling prophecy by influencing votes in other parts of the state. Or maybe it’s just a matter of voters supporting whichever party has the best candidates.
Either way, there are changes taking place across Washington. As columnist Danny Westneat of The Seattle Times points out, “If Tuesday’s primary results are any sign, our state has just become more polarized than ever … down ballot the news got a bit better for the GOP — even though voter-rich King County was delivering unprecedented margins for the Democrats. This means that areas outside the liberal center of Puget Sound were voting Republican even more than usual.”
Partisanship is a natural function of politics; it is part of the game, even if it has become more strident than ever.
But the troubling fact is that all of this represents a small sample size. Voter turnout in Clark County was about 30 percent — among registered voters, not among all adults. And it doesn’t require a math major to calculate that as damaging to our democracy.
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