EVERETT — For the second presidential election cycle in a row, Snohomish County voters chose President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump to face off in November.
Not that they had much of a choice.
In Tuesday’s presidential primary, initial results saw 85.9% of 72,800 total Democrats in the county return their ballot for Biden.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump took home 74% of the Republican vote. Challenger Nikki Haley, who withdrew from the race last week, after ballots were sent to Washington voters, garnered nearly 21%.
About 28% of Snohomish County voters had returned a ballot, as of Tuesday afternoon. Of those, 54.5% were Democrats.
In 2020, Biden received 39.6% of the state’s vote in a crowded primary. Trump, meanwhile, saw his piece of the primary vote drop from 98% when he ran unopposed in 2020 to 74% this year. His showing in Snohomish was almost exactly in line with results statewide.
In the last primary, with over a dozen candidates, 163,667 Democrats voted. This year, just over 70,000 Democratic ballots were counted in the initial results.
Republicans also saw lower returns. Tuesday nights results counted 61,000 votes for the party. In 2020, a primary with just one candidate option, more than 68,000 Republicans voted.
Overall turnout in the county was 25.8%, compared to 48.2% in March 2020.
Snohomish County had around 15,000 ballots left on hand to count as of Tuesday night.
Putting a minor dent in Biden’s support this year were a contingent of voters, 4,900 or 6.7%, who cast a ballot for “Uncommitted Delegates.”
Statewide, initial results counted 7.5% of Democratic voters choosing uncommitted.
Voting uncommitted allows a delegate representing Washington at the Democratic National Convention to choose their vote, whereas a vote for Biden forces a delegate to vote for the president.
Washington will have 92 delegates at the convention in August. To send an uncommitted delegate to the convention, the state party requires the option to get at least 15% of the vote.
The movement to vote uncommitted came after voters have watched peril, sickness and death in Gaza since October.
In Bothell, Deputy Mayor Rami Al-Kabra, a Palestinian American, was advocating for an uncommitted vote.
Al-Kabra said the movement has a number of demands for Biden if he expects their support, including pushing for an immediate ceasefire, the release of all Israeli and Palestinian hostages and Palestinian sovereignty.
The state Democratic Party requested the uncommitted choice appear on the ballot. The option was available in 2020, but just over 600 people in Snohomish County voted uncommitted in that competitive primary.
In other states this year, the movement has garnered enough support to send delegates to the national convention. In Michigan, more than 100,000 Democrats voted uncommitted, equalling two delegates. Minnesota will send 11 uncommitted delegates to the national convention after counting 46,000 such votes.
Both frontrunners have solidified their nominations, but it won’t be official until the parties hold their national conventions.
Of the delegates available, a Republican candidate needs 1,215 delegates to clinch the nomination. Trump crossed that threshold Tuesday.
A Democratic candidate needs 1,968 delegates for the nomination, Biden had already won 1,972, reaching the target before Tuesday’s votes in Washington were even counted.
Statewide, turnout was down compared to 2020.
The day before the election in 2020, more than 1.6 million voters, or 35.2%, had returned their ballot. This year, with 300,000 more voters registered, only 1.2 million, or 26.3%, returned a ballot the day before the election.
On Monday, more than 50,000 ballots were marked as challenged statewide, according to the Secretary of State’s office. In Snohomish County, over 6,000 were challenged. Ballots are challenged in presidential primaries when a party affiliation isn’t marked or the signature doesn’t match up with the one on file. They can’t be counted unless the issue is resolved before 8 p.m. on election night.
Jenelle Baumbach: 360-352-8623; jenelle.baumbach@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @jenelleclar.
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