Editorial: What Washington state’s results say about election

By The Herald Editorial Board

There are two national pastimes during election season: The first is attempting to predict the outcome from what voters tell pollsters before the election. The second is attempting to discern what the voters said with their ballots after the election.

Maybe the fable from India of The Blind Men and the Elephant is a bit too spot on, considering one party’s mascot, but the explanations, theories and finger-pointing have offered at best a scattershot of factors.

Washington state voters added more wrinkles to those discussions of the elephant’s skin by breaking from the overall national direction in their choice for U.S. president, even among fellow blue states.

Nationally, Republican Donald Trump won 312 electors and 50.4 percent of the popular vote to Democrat Kamala Harris’ 220 electors and 48 percent of the popular vote. But in Washington state, a majority of voters — 57.6 percent — rejected Trump for the third straight time and voted for Harris, while 38.4 percent voted for Trump; keeping to the state’s recent blue streak of support for the Democratic presidential ticket, including nearly 58 percent in 2020 for Joe Biden and 54 percent in 2016 for Hillary Clinton. Where in some blue states Harris under-performed compared to Biden and Clinton, the vice president in this state nearly matched Biden’s support and did better than Clinton.

Snohomish County closely mirrored the state numbers with 57.4 percent for Harris. 58 percent for Biden in 2020 and 54 percent support for Clinton in 2016.

Democrats also maintained their 8-2 majority in the U.S. House, successfully defending two red-to-purple districts in the 3rd and 8th, as well as in the U.S. Senate, and swept the races for governor, attorney general and other statewide offices and likely maintained or added to their majorities in the Legislature’s two chambers.

At the same time, three of four attempts to repeal or amend Democratic legislative priorities with initiatives — backed by a conservative campaign — failed by significant margins.

One of the main explanations for Democrats’ failures elsewhere has been in the high prices left in the wake of inflation and the party’s perceived lack of attention to the concerns of working-class families, both of which Trump appears to have successfully exploited; at least in the short term.

Acknowledging that not all boats have risen with the rising tide of Washington state’s relatively strong economy, pocketbook issues here may have been less a concern than elsewhere in the U.S., as a Washington State University professor of political science told Spokane’s Spokesman-Review this weekend. Cornell Clayton attributed the split in results to the state’s relatively high levels of education, a good public schools system and populations that increasingly are concentrated in cities and suburbs, especially in Western Washington.

Workers in Western Washington’s high-tech industries, Clayton said, have weathered inflation better than in states where industrial and manufacturing economies have been in decline.

And while taxpayers are rarely eager to volunteer for increases to sales or property tax — Snohomish County voters rejected a modest increase in sales tax for public safety programs — they didn’t appear swayed by appeals to cost-consciousness regarding two of the statewide initiatives.

Voters rejected Initiative 2117 — with nearly 62 percent voting no — which would have repealed the state’s Climate Commitment Act and its carbon cap-and-invest program. Backers claimed the carbon market had added as much as 50 cents to each gallon of gas in the state. Voters either discounted that claim, saw the benefit in what the CCA promises to deliver in solutions to the climate crisis and a reduction in air pollution or both.

Likewise, the state’s long-term care benefit program was retained by voters with their rejection of Initiative 2124 — with 55 percent voting no — which would have made the program’s modest payroll deduction optional but would have likely forced it into bankruptcy in just a few years.

Regarding the third rejected ballot measure — Initiative 2109 — voters in rejecting it nearly 64 percent to 36 percent, appear to have recognized that a sliver of the state’s wealthiest residents could be asked to pay a fair share though a capital gains tax.

Economic issues — especially in the wake of an extended period of inflation — are always going to be top of mind for voters, as demonstrated by passage of higher minimum wages in Everett as well as in Missouri and Alaska; though there are limits, as seen in California voters’ likely rejection of a $18 an hour minimum wage.

And where there is more confidence in a state’s or region’s economy, as evidenced by the failure of the three Washington ballot measures, there is a willingness among voters to make investments.

Republicans nationally should heed that economic focus especially as President-elect Trump moves ahead with plans for tariffs and mass deportations, both of which are seen as likely to assure inflation’s return.

Democrats in Congress, at the same time can look for opportunities to work to persuade Republicans to provide relief to working-class families by again expanding access to the child tax credit and providing financial assistance for child care for working parents.

Meanwhile, both parties in the state Legislature need to act to protect what they have in a relatively strong economy and the confidence it has produced among its residents.

Observers for both parties — from inside and outside the state — might gain greater insight into the voters’ intentions and concerns by exploring more of Washington state’s “part of the elephant.”