Cities outside of King County powered Biden-Harris’ historic victory in Washington State

Few were sur­prised on Novem­ber 3rd when reli­ably blue Wash­ing­ton was called for the Democ­rats. But what was only begin­ning to become clear that night was how geo­graph­i­cal­ly broad of a Demo­c­ra­t­ic shift Biden-Har­ris achieved here.

With a few excep­tions, Biden-Har­ris improved on Clin­ton-Kaine’s mar­gin in almost every region of Wash­ing­ton, includ­ing in thir­ty-five out of thir­ty-nine counties.

The tick­et’s most notable drop came in his­tor­i­cal­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cowlitz Coun­ty. But in urban, rur­al, sub­ur­ban and extra-urban areas across the state, Biden-Har­ris made improve­ments on Clin­ton-Kaine’s 2016 margins.

What brought the 2020 Demo­c­ra­t­ic tick­et their success?

Seat­tle is one of the bluest cities in the coun­try and the Repub­li­can Par­ty is vir­tu­al­ly dead there. Like in 2016, Trump did not come close to win­ning a sin­gle precinct in Seat­tle. But for all of Trump’s prob­lems in the Emer­ald City, Biden-Har­ris bare­ly improved on the par­ty’s 2016 vic­to­ry there: the tick­et’s win­ning mar­gin in Seat­tle was only around two points high­er than in 2016.

Nation­al­ly, there has been a lot of dis­cus­sion (and there will sure­ly be more of it) on Biden and Har­ris’ elec­toral performance.

The Demo­c­ra­t­ic tick­et made small improve­ments or lost ground in some big cities, while mak­ing large gains in the sub­urbs. Biden-Har­ris won Geor­gia thanks in no small part to gar­gan­tu­an Demo­c­ra­t­ic shifts in sub­ur­ban Atlanta and flipped Penn­syl­va­nia thanks par­tial­ly to large win­ning mar­gins in sub­ur­ban Philadelphia.

The tick­et’s improve­ments in the Seat­tle sub­urbs, par­tic­u­lar­ly on the East­side and North King Coun­ty, do par­tial­ly explain how the Democ­rats had the largest vic­to­ry in Wash­ing­ton of any pres­i­den­tial can­di­date since 1964.

But some of the biggest move­ments towards Biden-Har­ris in the Ever­green State were not in sub­ur­bia or Mar­tin Luther King Jr. County.

From Spokane to Van­cou­ver to Wal­la Wal­la to Belling­ham, small and mid-sized cities out­side of King Coun­ty were instru­men­tal. They helped the tick­et improve on Clin­ton-Kaine’s mar­gin and score a nine­teen-point vic­to­ry in Washington.

Biden-Har­ris made large gains in Spokane.

While Clin­ton-Kaine won Washington’s sec­ond largest city by eleven points in 2016, the 2020 tick­et brought the mar­gin up to sev­en­teen points, which helped shave Trump’s vic­to­ry in Spokane Coun­ty from nine points to four.

Spokane was not the only city east of the Cas­cades to shift to Biden-Harris.

Yaki­ma vot­ed for Trump by four points in 2016. It vot­ed for Biden-Har­ris by near­ly four points this year. Clin­ton won Wal­la Wal­la by under two points in 2016, but Biden-Har­ris won the city by almost ten, bring­ing the tick­et clos­er to vic­to­ry in Wal­la Wal­la Coun­ty than any Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date since 1996. Wenatchee vot­ed for Trump by around nine points in 2016 but nar­row­ly vot­ed (D) this year.

From the Cana­di­an bor­der to the Ore­gon bor­der, Biden-Har­ris saw suc­cess in small and mid-sized West­ern Wash­ing­ton cities as well.

The 2020 tick­et turned Clin­ton-Kaine’s thir­ty-sev­en-point vic­to­ry in Taco­ma into a forty-two-point vic­to­ry, help­ing reverse Pierce County’s con­tin­u­al Repub­li­can drift in pres­i­den­tial elec­tions. Biden-Har­ris improved on Clinton’s twen­ty-five-point mar­gin in Everett, win­ning it by over thir­ty points.

Fur­ther up I‑5, Biden-Har­ris won Belling­ham by a whop­ping six­ty points, improv­ing on Clinton-Kaine’s fifty-three-point vic­to­ry there.

Down I‑5, Biden-Har­ris won Van­cou­ver by twen­ty-two points, improv­ing on Clinton-Kaine’s six­teen-point vic­to­ry there. In short, all over Wash­ing­ton, medi­um and small cities were bad news for Trump.

The shift of small and mid-sized cities towards Biden-Har­ris is not unique to Wash­ing­ton. South of the Colum­bia Riv­er, Trump became the first Repub­li­can to lose Deschutes Coun­ty, home of Bend, since 1992.

The phe­nom­e­non is not unique to the North­west either. Pick any state Biden-Har­ris flipped, and there are small and mid-sized cities, from Flagstaff to Eau Claire to Scran­ton, that were instru­men­tal to the Demo­c­ra­t­ic victory.

Why have small and mid-sized cities moved towards the Democrats?

There are a few like­ly factors.

It is well known that America’s polit­i­cal divide is an urban-rur­al one, and Wash­ing­ton has not been spared of this polar­iza­tion. High­er pop­u­la­tion den­si­ty usu­al­ly makes places less Repub­li­can. Even tiny towns, like Pomeroy and Soap Lake, usu­al­ly vote slight­ly more Demo­c­ra­t­ic than the areas that sur­round them.

Edu­ca­tion is anoth­er like­ly fac­tor, as most cities, be they big or small, have more res­i­dents with col­lege degrees. Some of small and mid-sized cities in Wash­ing­ton are anchored by their uni­ver­si­ties, like Wal­la Wal­la, Belling­ham and Olympia.

It is unclear whether this phe­nom­e­non will con­tin­ue at its cur­rent pace or if it was just a result of Trump and the bizarre 2020 elec­tion. Like the rest of the nation, down-bal­lot Democ­rats, includ­ing Jay Inslee under­per­formed Biden-Har­ris over­all, though many small and mid-sized cities still shift­ed towards Inslee this year.

Regard­less, the phe­nom­e­non should cause alarm among Wash­ing­ton Republicans.

They already need to stop their con­tin­u­al hor­rif­ic show­ings in Seat­tle’s sub­urbs and can­not afford to lose ground any­where in the state.

But there is a lot of room for them to fall in small and mid-sized cities, and those loss­es could eas­i­ly off­set their gains elsewhere.

For instance, there were over 30,000 more vot­ers in Van­cou­ver this year than there were in Cowlitz Coun­ty. There were more Trump vot­ers in Everett than there were total vot­ers in Grays Har­bor Coun­ty, which has remained reli­ably Repub­li­can since Clin­ton utter­ly col­lapsed there in 2016.

If the Repub­li­can brand becomes tox­ic in small and mid-sized cities like it already has in Seat­tle and some of its sub­urbs, the flood­gates will con­tin­ue to open for Democ­rats up and down the ballot.

This shift could also make East­ern and Cen­tral Wash­ing­ton sub­stan­tial­ly more Demo­c­ra­t­ic. Yaki­ma and Spokane Coun­ties could con­ceiv­ably become blue.

The Repub­li­cans may even have trou­ble keep­ing their already dimin­ish­ing num­ber of leg­isla­tive seats if Democ­rats can run up the score in places like Yakima.

This may seem far-fetched today, but Biden-Har­ris made healthy cuts into Trump’s mar­gin in many East­ern and Cen­tral Wash­ing­ton leg­isla­tive districts.

For instance, Trump won Wash­ing­ton’s 15th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict, which con­tains part of Yaki­ma, by nine points in 2016. This year his mar­gin of vic­to­ry fell to under six points. Incum­bent Repub­li­can Leg­is­la­tors Bruce Chan­dler and Jere­mie Dufault both won the dis­trict eas­i­ly this year, but if cities like Yaki­ma con­tin­ue to move towards the Democ­rats on the pres­i­den­tial lev­el, dis­tricts like the 15th could move to the Democ­rats at the leg­isla­tive lev­el as well.

Down­bal­lot Repub­li­can incum­bents could absolute­ly fall vic­tim to this trend, par­tic­u­lar­ly if there is anoth­er blue wave cycle. Just ask Joe Fain or Mark Miloscia.

Wash­ing­ton is a most­ly urban and edu­cat­ed state.

The Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty needs to form an iden­ti­ty sep­a­rate from the nation­al Repub­li­can Par­ty and must change its tone if it wants to stop Washington’s drift towards a true one-par­ty state.

With each elec­tion, Seat­tle and its sub­urbs become more lost to the Repub­li­cans. Trump’s hor­ri­ble per­for­mance in Washington’s small­er cities is just one more piece of dread­ful news for the Repub­li­cans in their fight to remain rel­e­vant in the state.

Edi­tor’s Note: McCauley Pugh is an Asso­ciate Ana­lyst at Lake Research Part­ners. He is orig­i­nal­ly from Fed­er­al Way. He stud­ied Pol­i­tics and Inter­na­tion­al Rela­tions and Ital­ian Stud­ies at Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege Dublin and has an MSc in Com­par­a­tive Pol­i­tics with a spe­cial­ism in Nation­al­ism and Eth­nic Pol­i­tics from the Lon­don School of Eco­nom­ics and Polit­i­cal Sci­ence. Pri­or to work­ing at LRP, McCauley worked for The Mell­man Group and was an intern for U.S. Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell.