“A heretofore unknown to us bellwether in Washington state’s Dem primary vote indicates that, while turnout was about 6 percent shy of the show of force from before the 2018 Blue Wave, it was also 6 percent higher than what preceded the absolute beatdowns Dems took in 2010 and 2014,” we wrote on August 16th, 2022, citing a Politico report quoting some GOP consultant who was taking the turnout seriously. “We expected the low approval rating of Joe Biden to create a Republican wave. In Washington state, the election results were closer to neutral,” the consultant said, plainly uneasily.
Mind you this quote was three months before the midterms. House Republicans then won the national popular vote 50 to 47.3 percent, flipping nine seats for a 222 to 213 majority after primary turnout in Washington was +10.4 percent Dem. In 2014 and 2010 it was +3.5 and +1.8, respectively.
This year’s turnout: +15.8 percent Dem, higher than 2020’s +14 and 2016’s +15.6 Dem edges. It’s 2016 that sticks out for obvious reasons, because we still ended up with a Republican trifecta and the shitshow that was the Trump years. To that end, the eggheads at Split Ticket dug into it further, finding that if they separate primary turnout in “non-urban Washington” they can see a much stronger correlation between the partisan makeup and what the eventual national turnout is.
“In 2012, Washington as a whole had a D +4 vote in the House primary. In 2016, that number ballooned to D +15.5. But in non-urban Washington, Democrats collapsed, as the area went from R +4 to R +9.5. The primary numbers in non-urban Washington were the canary in the coal mine, predicting that Clinton would collapse in the Midwest relative to Obama, even as she made gains in highly educated urban areas like Seattle and suburban Atlanta,” they wrote explaining the anomaly.
Non-urban Washington’s 2020 turnout was +6.8 Republican, 2022’s was +11.6 R, and (drumroll) 2024’s was +5.5 R, leading Split Ticket to conclude, after a shit ton of caveats, that “if historical trends hold, Washington’s true bellwether arguably predicts a national House vote favoring Democrats by roughly three points, slightly bluer than 2020,” enough to flip the chamber and, more importantly, also indicating a win for Vice President Kamala Harris if you credit generic ballot polling that found her now running ahead of Congressional Dems after putting Joe Biden behind them.