Likewise, Democrats were leading in key congressional races, while state legislative races seemed to mostly reflect the status quo. That’s considered good for Democrats, because they have had complete control of the Legislature ever since Republicans got wiped out in the suburbs after Trump came on the scene.
Data gurus at Split Ticket, a campaign data outfit, reported that the preliminary vote in the Washington congressional races was adding up to about 58 percent Democrat to 41 percent Republican overall.
That’s a big blue tail wind. In the marquee campaign with no incumbent, the open race for governor, Democrat Bob Ferguson was easily outpolling his main GOP rival Dave Reichert. The MAGA favorite, Semi Bird, who was loudly endorsed by the state GOP convention, was pulling just 9 percent of the vote Tuesday.
That’s what it looks like when the MAGA bubble gets exposed to the general voting electorate in a blue-leaning state. It pops.
As for Reichert, he was drawing only 21 percent of the vote in King County. He served the county as sheriff and represented parts of it in Congress. But that’s a catastrophic number if it remains that low, as Republicans running statewide need to approach 40 percent in King County to have a chance.
Some Democratic consultants had predicted the votes might be tighter this year.
“There is a contentious Republican contest for governor on the primary ballot, which may drive up turnout and tilt the partisan composition of the primary electorate to the right,” one wrote in a pre-primary analysis.
But there were zero signs of any red tilt in Tuesday’s returns. Example: Democratic incumbent Sen. Maria Cantwell was getting 74 percent of the primary vote in King County, which, if it’s repeated in November, would be game over in the Senate race. The leading Republican, Dr. Raul Garcia, was drawing a paltry 13 percent in King County.
It’s fair to say that Republicans in the era of Trump have a terrible King County problem. By these results, it appears to be getting worse.
State Republicans this year turned over their endorsement process to their convention base, which was dominated by the MAGA faithful. In congressional races, many of the GOP-endorsed candidates did very poorly. It doesn’t appear they are even going to make it out of the primary in the 1st Congressional District, the 5th, the 7th, or the 10th.
In the open race in Eastern Washington’s 5th Congressional District, the GOP-endorsed candidate, Brian Dansel, used to work in the Trump administration and is an active election-denier. He was polling in fifth place with just 10 percent of the vote.
One place where Trump’s mojo was sort-of working was in Central Washington. His endorsement of former race car driver Jerrod Sessler, who suggested hanging Dr. Anthony Fauci two years ago, appeared to boost him ahead of incumbent U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Sunnyside. On the eve of the primary, Trump, still bitter that Newhouse had voted to impeach him, had called Newhouse “a weak and pathetic RINO” and endorsed both of Newhouse’s GOP challengers. Still, it seems likely Newhouse will survive to the November final — where he will again be the favorite to win reelection, defying Trump.
Primaries don’t always forecast exactly what’s coming in November. But they can give the gist. Local voters in this one again appear to be repeating what they said loudly in the last three.
Which is: Go away, Trump.
