How West Coast state’s primaries may predict the outcome of Trump and Kamala’s election night
Political observers are now pointing to the primary results in Washington state as a sign of how the 2024 presidential election between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris could go.
The Washington primaries are strong predictors of both the general mood among voters and the general election because they occur so late (August or September), giving voters less time to change their minds before November. The New York Times reported.
Additionally, the primaries are a free-for-all, with all candidates, regardless of party, competing on the same ballot. The top two go through to the final vote. In theory, this encourages candidates to campaign harder and voters to participate more.
Put it all together and just a few months before the rest of the country votes for president, Washington will have elections with high turnout and a diverse voter base.
Last month, House Democrats in Washington received 58 percent of the major parties’ vote share, which was three points better than in 2022.
This suggests there may be reason for Harris to be optimistic in November.
Washington state’s primary results bode well for Kamala Harris and suggest Donald Trump may underperform in the popular vote against her
The numbers indicate the country is in a similar mood to 2020, when Joe Biden defeated Trump by 4.5 percentage points in the national popular vote and Democrats held the House of Representatives.
If Washington’s numbers were applied to this year’s popular vote, compared to recent years, Democrats would perform about where they did in 2020 and two points better than in 2016.
However, the flaw in this prediction method is that it can only provide insight into the popular vote, and not the electoral college, which will determine the winner of the election.
Trump himself decisively defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 electoral college vote, despite the Democrat receiving almost 2.9 million more votes.
The 2016 primary results from nonmetropolitan parts of Washington (with the exception of Seattle) suggested that Clinton would underperform in the northern battleground states, which she did.
An analysis by SplitTicket, an independent election analysis site, looked at Washington’s election results and excluded Seattle
An analysis by SplitTicket, an independent election analysis site, looked at Washington’s election results and excluded Seattle.
As part of their research, the company showed parts of Washington that, overall, are much more demographically similar to key swing states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
According to recent polls, the candidates are neck and neck in all three of these states; Harris leads Trump by one point, 48 percent to 47 percent, in Michigan, and by two points in Wisconsin, 49 percent to 47 percent, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll.
In Pennsylvania, Harris is up 50-48 percent, according to A Fox News poll.
Perhaps the best predictor of the presidential election in Washington is the calling weather in Clallam County. Voters in the province have chosen the winning presidential candidate every time since 1980.
When analyzing primary results from Clallam County, also called the 6th Congressional District, Democrats received 59.2 percent of the vote share on the first ballot, while Republicans received only 38 percent.