Did an earlier date end up making your Washington primary vote more meaningful?
Washington saw itself as a big player in the presidential race this year when it scheduled an early, meaningful primary. It got a split decision: While the results wound up largely a national afterthought, voters turned out in huge numbers.
“Absolutely,” state Democratic Chair Tina Podlodowski told McClatchy when asked if the change worked. “It was a pretty fantastic turnout.”
But the primary didn’t get huge notice outside of Washington.
“Washington did still vote while the race was contested, but the state really was not a major focus of the campaign,” said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, which analyzes political races.
Washington officials were determined to have a big say in this year’s nominating process. In 2016, Democrats chose convention delegates in a caucus and later held a non-binding primary.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, Ind.-Vt., easily won the caucus in March and three of every four convention delegates. But then came confusion, when eventual nominee Hillary Clinton won the primary two months later with 52%.
The change was made. Washington would be one of six states voting March 10, 2020. The positioning seemed perfect. It would come one week after Super Tuesday March 3, when 14 states voted. Sure enough, those contests winnowed the field and the race became a virtual two-man duel between Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden. Biden is slightly ahead.
Washington had high hopes. “Democrats in Washington are ready for the big show in 2020,” Podlodowski said last year.
“We look forward to more presidential candidate attention and visits, increasing voter and activist engagement, and lifting up Democrats at all levels on the 2020 ballot.”
But while candidates did come to Washington weeks ago, neither Biden nor Sanders visited in the closing days, preferring to concentrate largely on Michigan, a traditional swing state that Sanders won last time. Biden also won Missouri, Mississippi and Idaho while Sanders took North Dakota.
On election night, “Michigan was the big story of the night,” said Margaret O’Mara, author of “Pivotal Tuesdays: Four Elections That Shaped the Twentieth Century” and a University of Washington history professor.
Washington’s polls closed at 8 p.m. PDT, and results throughout the night were too close to call.
“Attention may have been limited but being on the West coast probably hurt a little Tuesday night among all those early Biden wins. But even before that for the candidates, it was pretty clear after Super Tuesday that Sanders was going to focus on Michigan,” said Josh Putnam, who runs Frontloading HQ, a site that analyzes political rules.
He did note, though, “As it turns out, Washington, too, was symbolic of it not being 2016 anymore for Sanders. The likely loss there is as much a signal of that as Michigan was. “
The inattention to Washington was a “combination of circumstances,” O’Mara said.
The coronavirus crisis dominated the news and restricted personal campaigning; Podlodowski cited the outbreak as the key reason candidates did not appear at the end. The party postponed a major dinner scheduled for the Saturday before the primary.
The mail-in ballot meant a quieter campaign and complicated the result. About one-third of the votes went to candidates no longer in the race. Ballots were mailed February 21, but by election day 10 of the 13 candidates were gone.
But the primary was a success in another way.
“It’s the first time in state history both political parties are using the results to allocate their delegates to the national conventions. This gave Washingtonians a greater voice in the process than they’ve ever had previously,” said Kylee Zabel, communications director for the Washington Secretary of State.
In 2016, 230,000 Democrats participated in the caucus and 1.4 million voted in primaries. Tuesday, about 2 million people voted.
“If you are a political creature you miss the caucuses,” said Monisha Harrell, a Seattle-based Democratic strategist. “But it’s very clear that is not a democratic way to do business.”
The big turnout “tells you there’s a debate to be had in Washington,” she said, especially since the Biden-Sanders result was so close.
It also helped ease any impact from the coronavirus crisis.
Steve Albrecht, an Olympia physician, said it was good timing for a vote-by-mail election, considering the ongoing outbreak of COVID-19.
“I think our state should be applauded for having a process like this that gets an increased voter turnout and a safe voter turnout and a secure vote,” he said.
Voters liked the 2020 process. Over the lunch hour Tuesday, a steady stream of voters dropped ballots into the drop box in front of Olympia City Hall, where Cherry Street Southeast meets 4th Avenue East downtown.
Rosemarie Clemente, who works in Olympia, told The Olympian it “absolutely” felt like her vote meant more this year, with the primary happening in March. And for Evan and Cortni Boyd, who live on Olympia’s east side, voting in the presidential primary was a new experience altogether.
“This is the first time when we’ve even been aware of a primary and participated in it,” Cortni Boyd said.
This story was originally published March 13, 2020 at 8:00 AM with the headline "Did an earlier date end up making your Washington primary vote more meaningful?."
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