NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate provides the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Tuesday, May 28th, 2019

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.

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.

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