Washingtonians unhappy with Donald Trump, want to replace him with a Democrat in 2020

A super­ma­jor­i­ty of Wash­ing­ton State vot­ers dis­ap­prove of Don­ald Trump and say they’d sup­port his Demo­c­ra­t­ic oppo­nent if the 2020 elec­tion were being held now, accord­ing to a new sur­vey con­duct­ed for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Institute.

61% of respon­dents sur­veyed by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling on NPI’s behalf last week said they dis­ap­proved of Trump’s job per­for­mance, while 59% said they would vote for Trump’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lenger if the elec­tion were being held today.

Last year, when we asked Wash­ing­to­ni­ans about Trump’s job per­for­mance, 59% dis­ap­proved while 35% approved, while 6% were not sure.

In this year’s sur­vey, an iden­ti­cal per­cent­age of respon­dents approved of Trump’s per­for­mance, while a slight­ly greater per­cent­age (61%) dis­ap­proved. The per­cent­age of respon­dents who were unsure shrank accordingly.

Trump hand­i­ly lost Wash­ing­ton in 2016 and no cred­i­ble polit­i­cal observ­er expects him to win the Ever­green State in 2020. How­ev­er, the Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty has two statewide incum­bents it will be try­ing to defend next year: Sec­re­tary of State Kim Wyman and Trea­sur­er Duane Davidson.

Trump’s pres­ence atop the tick­et could poten­tial­ly hurt both Wyman and David­son (as well as Repub­li­can leg­isla­tive can­di­dates) with a reverse coat­tails effect.

Our data shows that Don­ald Trump is los­ing sup­port on both sides of the Cas­cade Moun­tains. Trump has always been unpop­u­lar in Puget Sound, of course, but it’s sig­nif­i­cant that he’s now unpop­u­lar every­where… even in places he car­ried almost three years ago, like East­ern Wash­ing­ton. (Every coun­ty east of the Cas­cades vot­ed for Trump three years ago except for Whit­man Coun­ty.)

Vot­ers on the Olympic Penin­su­la and South­west Wash­ing­ton are even more unhap­py with Trump. And they have every rea­son to be: Trump has­n’t done any­thing to bring jobs back to their com­mu­ni­ties like he false­ly promised he would.

Here are the statewide numbers:

QUESTION: Do you approve or dis­ap­prove of Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s job performance?

ANSWERS:

• Dis­ap­prove: 61%
• Approve: 35%
• Not sure: 4%

And here are the num­bers by region:

QUESTION: Do you approve or dis­ap­prove of Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s job performance?

ANSWERS:

• King Coun­ty
  • Dis­ap­prove: 71%
  • Approve: 24%
  • Not sure: 5%
• North Puget Sound 
  • Dis­ap­prove: 59%
  • Approve: 39%
  • Not sure: 2%
• South Sound
  • Dis­ap­prove: 60%
  • Approve: 33%
  • Not sure: 6%
• Olympic Penin­su­la and South­west Washington 
  • Dis­ap­prove: 58%
  • Approve: 39%
  • Not sure: 2%
• East­ern Washington 
  • Dis­ap­prove: 51%
  • Approve: 47%
  • Not sure: 2%

As men­tioned, Wash­ing­ton vot­ers aren’t just unhap­py with Trump; they’re ready to replace him with a Demo­c­ra­t­ic oppo­nent. Here are the statewide numbers:

QUESTION: If the elec­tion for Pres­i­dent were held today, would you vote to re-elect Repub­li­can Don­ald Trump, or would you vote for his Demo­c­ra­t­ic opponent?

ANSWERS:

• Demo­c­ra­t­ic oppo­nent: 59%
• Don­ald Trump: 34%
• Not sure: 7%

And here are the num­bers by region:

QUESTION: If the elec­tion for Pres­i­dent were held today, would you vote to re-elect Repub­li­can Don­ald Trump, or would you vote for his Demo­c­ra­t­ic opponent?

ANSWERS:

• King Coun­ty
  • Demo­c­ra­t­ic oppo­nent: 68%
  • Don­ald Trump: 24%
  • Not sure: 8%
• North Puget Sound 
  • Demo­c­ra­t­ic oppo­nent: 57%
  • Don­ald Trump: 33%
  • Not sure: 9%
• South Sound
  • Demo­c­ra­t­ic oppo­nent: 60%
  • Don­ald Trump: 33%
  • Not sure: 7%
• Olympic Penin­su­la and South­west Washington 
  • Demo­c­ra­t­ic oppo­nent: 56%
  • Don­ald Trump: 37%
  • Not sure: 7%
• East­ern Washington 
  • Demo­c­ra­t­ic oppo­nent: 51%
  • Don­ald Trump: 47%
  • Not sure: 3%

Our sur­vey of eight hun­dred and eighty-six like­ly 2019 Wash­ing­ton State vot­ers was in the field from Tues­day, May 21st through Wednes­day, May 22nd, 2019.

It uti­lizes a blend­ed method­ol­o­gy, with auto­mat­ed phone calls to land­lines and online inter­views of cell phone only respondents.

The poll was con­duct­ed by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, and has a mar­gin of error of +/- 3.3% at the 95% con­fi­dence level.

Nation­wide polls show that more Amer­i­cans also dis­ap­prove of Trump’s job per­for­mance than approve, although the dis­par­i­ty is less pro­nounced than it is in Demo­c­ra­t­ic-con­trolled states such as Washington.

• Civiqs: Trump job performance
• Huff­Post Poll­ster: Trump job performance
• FiveThir­tyEight: Trump job performance
• Real­Clear­Pol­i­tics: Trump job performance

Trump’s grow­ing unpop­u­lar­i­ty in Wash­ing­ton sug­gests that Repub­li­cans are in no posi­tion to go on offense next year. They’ll have to play real­ly good defense just to hold on to what they still have. Mean­while, Democ­rats have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to grow their already large House and Sen­ate majori­ties and take total con­trol of the state exec­u­tive depart­ment by oust­ing Duane David­son and Kim Wyman.