THE GREAT AMERICAN POLITICAL ROADTRIP: WASHINGTON

The 2020 Presidential Election in Washington

Recent political trends in Washington

Though we may think of Washington State as a “blue state,” that wasn’t the case even just 25 years ago. As recently as 2000, it was considered a swing state. Some polls had it going Republican that year.

Once part of the “Solid Republican West,” Washington State only veered from being solid Republican twice in the 1960s: in 1964 in the Lyndon Johnson landside and in 1968 when Hubert Humphrey upset Richard Nixon here, helped by a strong performance by third-party challenger George Wallace in the rural eastern part of the state. Democrats have won every Senate race since 1994 and every governor’s since 1984, although some have been very close.

Among those nailbiters was the 2000 Senate election when Democrat Maria Cantwell upset Republican incumbent Slate Gordon by a slim 2,200 votes. In 2004, Democrat Christine Gregoire defeated Republican Dino Rossi by just 129 votes out of 2.8 million cast. The result was highly controversial but marked the end of the Republican Party’s competitiveness statewide.