Westneat: What’s up, WA voters?

So it’s surprising, at least to me, that voter turnout here in normally amped-up, civic-minded Washington state is lagging. At this point in the last presidential election, 830,000 more Washingtonians had cast ballots. The number of votes cast so far is down by more than 30 percent.

What’s up, Washington? Numbed by toxic politics? Turning inward when all about you seems to have gone crazy?

Or is it what I referred to in a column last week — that the third election in a row that’s all about Trump has just worn people down?

Election officials caution that comparing any year to the pandemic is dicey. People just behaved differently then. So maybe there’ll be an urgent surge of voter activity here in the final days. Hope so.

To date, though, voters in blue Washington aren’t acting like they believe the fate of democracy is on the line.

It would be the ultimate surprise twist to a startling political year — and not in a good way — if voters looked at the epic-historical drama playing out and shrugged “nah, I’ll sit this one out.”

One of the problems could be that while the presidential race is a history-making roller coaster, the statewide races here are following the same old script. It’s Democrats, everything, everywhere, all at once.

Two new polls last week showed all the major statewide races trending toward Democrats. One of them, by ActiVote, had an interesting political analysis that showed how it’s becoming near impossible for Republicans to compete here.

It divides voters into five camps — left, moderate left, center, moderate right and right. Nationally, about 20 percent of voters are in each camp. Here though, the pollster found that left and moderate left make up 49 percent of the electorate — just 1 percent from victory.

In the race for governor, “(Bob) Ferguson has support from the left and moderate left completely locked up: 95 percent support him,” the pollster found. So Ferguson scarcely needs anybody else to win.

A poll by Seattle firm Strategies 360 showed the same problem for Republicans in statewide races all down the ballot.

The polls say Jaime Herrera Beutler, candidate for lands commissioner, is the Republican with the best chance of winning. Still she’s down by nine points in the Strategies 360 poll.

Polls are forecasting a Democratic sweep of all 10 partisan statewide votes. (president, U.S. senator, eight statewide offices.) Last time such a sweep happened? 1944. So history may be in the making on the local ballot, too.

Finally, there’s some drama with the first things you’ll see on your ballot, the initiatives. The legacy of outgoing Gov. Jay Inslee is on the line.

The personal politics around the effort to repeal Inslee’s signature climate change law is especially loaded. He arguably brought on the repeal campaign, called Initiative 2117, when he vastly undersold the law’s effect on gas prices.

But two big things have buoyed Inslee on the way to this vote. One, supporters launched a multimillion-dollar ad campaign against I-2117.

Two, gas prices plunged. They’re now down more than $1 a gallon from the summer of 2023, when the repeal campaign got fired up by pain at the pump. Prices that began with a “$5” in 2023 may begin with a “$3” by Election Day — despite the climate law continuing to add an estimated 25 cents to 30 cents.

Climate change policies historically have done poorly with voters. But polls show decent odds this one might survive — in part because of the whims, the lucky timing, of the oil markets.

Like I said, this election is full of surprises. So the least we can do is join the ride and vote.