I went back and read the diaries and some of the comments I wrote for Daily Kos about the 2010 elections in my home state of Washington. I was OK at predicting what would happen, although I was maybe a little bit too optimistic here and there.
Perhaps I was optimistic because I couldn’t believe how anyone could vote for a Republican. Anyway, here’s what happened in WA, below the fold.
WA-SEN: Patty Murray (D) vs. Dino Rossi (R)
On July 26, before the WA primary election, I wrote this diary: WA-SEN: Ignorant Teabagger Didier Zinged By Wise Columnist. The Palin-endorsed teabagger, Clint Didier, lost the primary and Dino Rossi became Patty Murray’s opponent. Didier (a farmer and a former NFL player – which means he worked in professions that received government help) refused to endorse Rossi unless he endorsed his teabaggissh principles. After the primary I didn’t write any more diaries about the Senatorial race, although I wrote numerous comments predicting that Murray would win – mostly in reaction to Rasmussen and SUSA polls that showed it might be a close race. In the end, Murray won by 52-48%.
I knew Murray would win. I just knew it. Washington is a blue state.
Congressional Districts
I wrote WA Congressional Races on July 23 (click on the link -- it has a boring name but it has a colorful map and some cool graphs that took a lot of work to upload). I pointed out that WA is represented by six Democrats and three Republicans. I said districts 1, 6, 7, and 9 were pretty safe for Democrats and 4 and 5 were pretty safe for Republicans. Three districts were up for grabs. I hoped that Democrats could hold on in WA-02 and WA-03 and that we’d defeat Dave Reichert in WA-08.
Then, a month before the election, I wrote WA-08: Suzan DelBene Can Beat Dave Reichert. I’m a Democrat. I suppose I’m sometimes foolishly optimistic.
Unfortunately, we lost a seat. The Dems won 1, 6, 7, and 9 and the Reps won 4 and 5 (as expected). In the other three Districts:
WA-02: The Democrat, Rick Larsen, barely won, 51-49%, against a crazy Palin-endorsed teabagger named John Koster.
WA-03: Jaime Herrera (R) beat Denny Heck (D) by 53-47%. The incumbent, Democrat Brian Baird, retired and didn’t run for re-election.
WA-08: I thought this was the best possibility of turning a red seat to blue in our state, but Reichert beat DelBene 52-48%. Two years from now, this seat would be in play, except that we will have redistricting and WA is predicted to gain a seat from the census. Who knows how the lines will be redrawn?
The State Legislature
I wrote a Daily Kos diary about this on August 28, 2010: The 2010 Legislative Elections in Washington State.
Before the 2010 election, the state senate had 31 Democrats and 18 Republicans. I boldly predicted that after the election there would be 29 Dems and 20 Reps. Based on the latest election results, it’s looking like 28 Dems and 21 Reps. I missed it by one. I’m patting myself on my back.
Before the election, the state house in WA had 61 Democrats to 37 Republicans. I predicted that we’d end up with 59-39. I was off by two or three. It looks like we’ll have 56-41 (and one seat is extremely close). The last time I looked at LD-25/2, Hans Zeiger, the Republican, was 18 votes ahead of Dawn Morrell, the Democrat.
Zeiger is utterly insane – he wrote several articles for WorldNetDaily containing his opinions. Here’s a front page DKos story: Who hates the Girl Scouts?. Here’s a story from Horsesass: Heil Hans: Local press covers the horse race while ignoring GOP challenger’s batshit crazy hate speech. He hates girl scouts. He thinks the NEA (the teachers’ union) is a terrorist organization. He’s a Christian who dislikes Unitarians, mainstream Baptists, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, members of the "Military Pagan Network." WTF? Zeiger is ahead by 18 votes, 24,800 to 24,782. I don’t know if there are uncounted ballots or if there might be a recount. We can only hope.
The other crazy race in the state house is Senate District 31, where the incumbent is Pam Roach. I wrote this about her in September: WA-LD31: Three Democrats Endorse Crazy Republican Pam Roach. She’s so uncontrollable that the Republicans banned her from their caucus meetings until she could get counseling for anger management.
But because of the idiotic way we do primary elections in WA, the top two vote getters in her district were both Republicans (and the two Democrats split the Democratic vote). Either Democrat would have been better than Roach. In the general election, voters had to choose between two Republicans. Why did three Democrats endorse the crazy Republican lady who needs anger management? Because her opponent turned out to be some guy who pleaded guilty to sexually molesting children. Roach was the least objectionable candidate, the best of the worst.
The Initiatives
I’m very happy that Patty Murray won and that Democrats kept their majorities in the state senate and house. And I’m disappointed that we lost one seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
By far the worst results came from the initiatives. On September 16, I wrote this: Overview Of The 2010 WA Initiatives. Yes, Democrats won (mostly), but the voters voted against taxes.
I-1053 won, which means the legislature will need a 2/3 majority to raise taxes or fees. Look at the results of the legislative races – we won’t be able to raise taxes for two years (which is the time limit for voter-approved initiatives). I hate Tim Eyman.
I-1098 lost, which means no state income tax. The state will continue to use the horribly horribly regressive sales tax. It penalizes poor people. I-1098 was started by the father of Bill Gates, who thought that taxing rich people was a good idea.
I-1107 won, which means the sales tax on candy and bottled water is eliminated. Which means the legislature will have to find other ways to raise money (but they can’t raise taxes, because of the 2/3 rule of I-1053).
It’s crazy. The voters mostly voted for Democrats (we’re a blue state) but they also voted against taxes.