In Sunday's Wenatchee (WA) World the headline on the front page lead story reads:
Joining the Party
For decades, Chelan County politics have been dominated by Republicans. But local Democrats are seeing a recent surge in enthusiasm they attribute to transplanted 206ers and President Bush
An accompanying graphic shows that Chelan County has voted Dem in the presidential race only twice since 1936 (Truman and LBJ).
I can't get to the newspaper's
website (flash problems) to link the article, but here's the money quote:
Leaders from both parties say what Democrats have pulled off this election season is unheard of for the party here -- planting signs all over town, staging a march and rally with about 130 people, and opening a new downtown headquarters on Mission Street that's larger and more visible than the Republicans' office a block away.
More disturbing for Republicans are the results of the Sept. 14 primary, in which 42 pecent of Chelan County voters who picked a party chose Democratic ballots.
Considering 17% chose "Independent" in the primary, that makes the GOP the minority party here.
The article goes on to theorize that a large influx of Seattle people ("206ers" in the local vernacular) is responsible, and while that's probably true in part, there's also been immigration from the MidWest (some of the most active Democrats came from WI, as I did) and an underlying base of native Dems and strongly independent voters (which is true in most rural areas I've lived in).
I've been learning that an amazing number of "natives" have been life-long closet Democrats. Some Republicans here belong to the right wing of the GOP - more conservative than Bush and friends - and the word is a lot of them will vote Libertarian this year. Chelan County also has a large Hispanic population.
Quoting again:
State Republican Chairman Chris Vance said there's concern that Chelan County is the one area in Eastern Washington that could slip away from the GOP
Vance may be overly optimistic - Douglas, Grant and Okanogan counties aren't that far behind Chelan in seeing new Democratic activism.
While I have no data to show this is a nationwide trend, the anecdotal evidence is that Chelan County, WA isn't the only place this is happening.
The polls aren't even close to right - we're going to win big.
