I recently learned of an off-the-beaten-political-path tool right here in Washington State that has some potentially good news about our upcoming national election. I’ve lived here for over 30 years and this is the first I’ve heard about it, but thought it was worth sharing.
Here’s the gist, from the NYT article later reprinted in part in the Seattle Times (the NYT link should allow you to get around the paywall):
Political polls, betting markets and statistical forecasts have become ubiquitous as November approaches. But there’s one predictive tool you may have missed: primary elections in Washington State, which took place [in August].
It’s an indicator that election nerds pay particular attention to, for good reason: The general election results in the state a few months later tend to move in the same direction — whether becoming more Republican or more Democratic — as the rest of the country.
This year, results from Washington State are cause for some optimism among Democrats. They suggest a national environment somewhat similar to 2020, when Joe Biden outgained Donald J. Trump by 4.5 percentage points in the national popular vote and Democrats retained the House.
Seems the Washington state primary election has a unique combination of factors that bear on its usefulness as a predictor of what will happen nationally in November:
- Our primaries occur late in the season (not including the Presidential, which took place in the spring just like everyone else’s), so not much time for huge shifts in outlook before November
- We have a top-two system (known in some quarters as a “jungle primary”), which encourages strong participation by both candidates and voters, because nobody has a guaranteed place on the general ballot, and
- Our all-mail-ballot system gives people plenty of time to get their ballots in, so there are minimal barriers to ballot access.
As a result of all this, it turns out that for elections this century, in both presidential years and mid-terms, there’s a significant correlation between the direction and degree of political movement between the WA primaries, the WA general election, and the national general election.
I would encourage you to read the article for a fuller understanding. There are many nuances and caveats, of course, including one that the article didn’t mention, which is that some conservatives have been leaving the state; I don’t know how much that migration influenced this year’s primaries in a way that isn’t matched nationally.
That being said, I’ll take every drop of hopium I can get my hands on these days.
UPDATE: It didn't occur to me to mention this, because in my mind it goes without saying, but since a lot of people are in fact saying it in the comments, I thought I'd go ahead and join the chorus:
No complacency! We need to keep working like our lives depend on it, because they do.
