When it comes to choosing nominees for the presidential election, Washingtonians are on the outside looking in. Our votes in the presidential primary at best mean little, and at worse mean nothing.
Because of that, it’s not too early to ponder how to make our state more relevant in the 2020 primary process. If Washington is going to play a meaningful role, lawmakers must act next year to move the primary ahead on the calendar, as long has been recommended by Secretary of State Kim Wyman.
Wyman, a Republican, plans to ask the Legislature to move the state’s presidential primary from the fourth Tuesday in May to the second Tuesday in March, and the argument in favor is strong. Washington, despite being the nation’s 13th most populous state, is an afterthought in the process for choosing major-party nominees for the highest office in the land. In fact, we canceled presidential primaries in 2004 and 2012.
In 2016, by the time the state’s primary rolled around, Donald Trump had wrapped up his party’s nomination, rendering the votes of Washington Republicans essentially meaningless.
Unfortunately, the status of Washington Democrats was even worse, with votes in the primary being completely meaningless. The Democratic Party chooses to apportion Washington delegates to the national convention through caucuses that take place weeks before the primary. The 2016 caucuses drew about 230,000 attendees; when the primary rolled around, more than 800,000 Washingtonians filled out ballots for the Democratic primary.
Clinging to the elitist and antiquated caucus system disenfranchises hundreds of thousands of citizens who might like to weigh in on who will represent their party in the general election, and it suggests to Washington Democrats that their state party has a small and exclusive tent.
While party officials decide how to count votes for prospective nominees, the Legislature decides when the primary takes place; moving the date would give Washington a level of power commensurate with its population. Wyman has suggested establishing a “Pac-12” primary date, in reference to major universities in Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Utah and Colorado. Such a coalition could have the desired effect without trying to jump to the front of the line and needlessly extending the primary season.
Last year, California officials decided to move their primary from June to early March in 2020. If some combination of other Western states could join Californians in voting on that date, it would force wannabe nominees to pay attention to this part of the country. While Iowa and Delaware are determined to remain the first states on the primary calendar, and while the primary process seems to be starting earlier and earlier, there would be benefits to moving Washington up on the calendar.
A meaningful primary in this part of the country would bring candidates to the region, where they can learn about issues that are of particular interest to us. Environmental concerns and Pacific Rim trade and the cleanup at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation are unlikely to land on a candidates’ radar during a visit to Iowa, but they are essential to our economy and quality of life.
Bringing those issues to the forefront will depend upon moving Washington’s primary to a meaningful spot on the calendar. Lawmakers should be quick to do so and allow our state to have a say in who gets nominated to be president of the United States.
