United States presidential elections in Washington (state)

Presidential elections in Washington

Map of the United States with Washington highlighted
Number of elections	34
Voted Democratic	19
Voted Republican	14
Voted other	1[a]
Voted for winning candidate	23
Voted for losing candidate	11

Washington is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Since its admission to the Union in November 1889, the state has participated in 34 United States presidential elections.^[2][3] It has had twelve electoral votes since 2012, when it gained a tenth congressional district during reapportionment based on the results of the 2010 U.S. census.^[4][5] Washington has conducted its presidential elections through mail-in voting since 2012 for general elections and 2016 for party primaries.^[6]

In the 1892 presidential election, the first since Washington became a state, President Benjamin Harrison received 41.45% of the popular vote and obtained Washington's four electoral votes in his unsuccessful re-election campaign.^[7] From 1892 to 2024, the state has voted for 15 Republican or third-party presidential candidates and 19 Democratic presidential candidates; Washington has voted for the losing presidential candidate in 11 elections.^[2] Washington generally favored the Republican Party in presidential elections until 1932, reflecting its state and congressional voting patterns.^[8] The state was won by Progressive Party presidential nominee Theodore Roosevelt in the 1912 election; Roosevelt, who had been a Republican during his presidency, is the only third party candidate to have won Washington's presidential election.^[1][8]

From 1932 to 1948, Democratic candidates won Washington in landslide victories for the presidency and state offices as a result of the Great Depression and New Deal.^[8][9] Washington was characterized as a swing state for the remainder of the 20th century and voted 21 times for the winning candidate from 1892 to 1996.^[1][8] The state's voters often had split-ticket ballots with candidates from multiple political parties, which was reflected by Democrats and Republicans alternately holding state offices and majorities in the state legislature.^[10] Since 1984, no Republican candidate has won a presidential election in Washington; the state's governors have been Democrats since 1980.^[2][11] The state has had five faithless electors in the Electoral College who cast ballots for people other than their pledged candidates; these votes were voided and the electors were fined under the state law at the time.^[12] An elector in the 1976 election voted for Ronald Reagan instead of Gerald Ford, who had won the state's nine electoral votes. In the 2016 election, four of the twelve electors from Washington declined to vote for Hillary Clinton; three cast their ballots for former general and Secretary of State Colin Powell and one for Faith Spotted Eagle, an indigenous political activist.^[12][13]

The Cascade Mountains mark the boundary between the western and eastern regions of Washington, which have differences in culture, climate, and politics.^[14][15] Historically, Western Washington has been generally characterized as liberal or progressive, while Eastern Washington has been characterized as conservative.^[14][16] The suburban areas of the Seattle metropolitan area, which contains the majority of the state's population, became a reliably Democratic area in the late 20th century and solidified Washington as a blue state.^[15][17] Washington is among 18 states collectively referred to as the "blue wall", coined in 2009 by journalist Ron Brownstein, due to their strong preference for Democrats.^[18][19]

The state adopted a single-ballot blanket primary system in 1936 to replace earlier party primaries; until 2020, these were non-binding and not used to determine delegates in national party conventions.^[6][20] In 2010, Washington signed the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an interstate compact in which signatories award all of their electoral votes to the winner of the federal-level popular vote in a presidential election regardless of the state's vote.^[21] As of 2024^[update], the compact has been signed by 17 states and the District of Columbia, but has not reached the threshold of 270 electoral votes to take effect.^[22]

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