What was that about I‑1125 being “too close to call”?

Now that most of Wash­ing­ton’s thir­ty-nine coun­ties have released updat­ed returns with fresh­ly tab­u­lat­ed bal­lots, we can project even more con­fi­dent­ly that Tim Eyman’s I‑1125 is head­ed down to defeat.

A sec­ond coun­ty, Spokane, has now flipped from the Yes col­umn to the No col­umn, only hours after anoth­er east­ern Wash­ing­ton coun­ty, Adams, became the first to change sides. Mean­while, the No on I‑1125 vote in key swing coun­ties like Sno­homish and What­com con­tin­ues to go up, strength­en­ing the over­all vote against Tim Eyman’s lat­est scheme to wreck gov­ern­ment statewide.

It’s nice to see the mar­gin widen­ing, but it’s even nicer to see the No on I‑1125 camp becom­ing more geo­graph­i­cal­ly diverse. A siz­able chunk of south­east Wash­ing­ton is now unit­ed with north­west Wash­ing­ton against I‑1125, and at least a hand­ful of oth­er coun­ties are on the verge of going from Yes to No as well.

The No on I‑1125 forces now com­prise What­com, San Juan, Skag­it, Island, Sno­homish, Kit­sap, King, Thurston, Jef­fer­son, Adams, Whit­man, Spokane, and Garfield coun­ties. The No vote is, not sur­pris­ing­ly, strongest in San Juan and King, which are the state’s most pro­gres­sive counties.

The Yes vote is gen­er­al­ly strongest along the bor­der with Ore­gon. Vot­ers in Wahki­akum, Cowlitz, Clark, Ska­ma­nia, Klick­i­tat, Ben­ton, and Wal­la Wal­la coun­ties are vot­ing for I‑1125 by large mar­gins. How­ev­er, with the excep­tion of Clark (home to Van­cou­ver) and Ben­ton (home to the Tri-Cities), most of these coun­ties are home to rel­a­tive­ly few peo­ple, and their firm back­ing of I‑1125 is more than equaled by King Coun­ty’s firm rejec­tion of I‑1125.

Speak­ing of Mar­tin Luther King Jr. Coun­ty, the no vote there has now topped 61%, and it looks like it might go even high­er in the next few days.

I‑1125 is also pass­ing in north­east­ern Wash­ing­ton, but not by impres­sive mar­gins. In Pend Oreille Coun­ty, which bor­ders British Colum­bia on one side and Ida­ho on anoth­er, sup­port for I‑1125 stood at only 52%. The Yes vote in neigh­bor­ing Fer­ry and Stevens coun­ties was high­er, but not by too much.

About the author

Andrew Villeneuve is the founder and executive director of the Northwest Progressive Institute, as well as the founder of NPI's sibling, the Northwest Progressive Foundation. He has worked to advance progressive causes for over two decades as a strategist, speaker, author, and organizer. Andrew is also a cybersecurity expert, a veteran facilitator, a delegate to the Washington State Democratic Central Committee, and a member of the Climate Reality Leadership Corps.

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