Loss of a presidential bellwether: For decades, Okanogan County telegraphed Washington’s allegiance in federal elections. Not anymore.

The most serene pulse-tak­ing in Amer­i­can pres­i­den­tial pol­i­tics used to take place amidst gold­en fall col­ors in Washington’s Okanogan Coun­ty, and in talk­ing to reg­u­lars at the Cari­bou Inn, some of whom remem­bered Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The county’s sil­ver min­ers gave their hearts to William Jen­nings Bryan in 1900, but Okanogan Coun­ty would then vote for the win­ner of every pres­i­den­tial elec­tion until Bill Clin­ton in 1992. Okanogan had the nation’s longest streak of win­ners after Crook Coun­ty, Ore­gon, vot­ed in 1992 to reelect George H.W. Bush.

It would not be for long.

The rur­al north-cen­tral Wash­ing­ton coun­ty vot­ed for Bob Dole in 1996.

It has been reli­ably Repub­li­can ever since.

The coun­ty even vot­ed against local ranch­er Peter Gold­mark when he was seek­ing reelec­tion as Washington’s Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands.

Our lat­est gen­er­a­tion of polit­i­cal reporters has dis­cov­ered that Clal­lam Coun­ty has a streak going, It has vot­ed for every pres­i­den­tial win­ner since 1980. Big (bleepin’) deal, as Joe Biden would say. The con­ser­v­a­tive Olympic Penin­su­la coun­ty is hard­ly a bell­wether, hav­ing vot­ed against Gov. Jay Inslee, Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son and State Lands Com­mis­sion­er Hilary Franz in November.

Still, vot­ing habits and win­ning streaks tell us much about the fas­ci­nat­ing polit­i­cal evo­lu­tion of Wash­ing­ton State, which was admit­ted to the Union in 1889.

I grew up in an era when East­side King Coun­ty dis­tricts, notably the 41st and 48th, were the Repub­li­cans’ heart­land. They didn’t real­ly elect leg­is­la­tors to the State House or State Sen­ate. That’s because an incum­bent would fre­quent­ly resign mid-term, with his replace­ment to be duly rat­i­fied by voters.

The sub­urbs and exurbs of King Coun­ty are now solid­ly blue. The big leg­isla­tive con­test this year was the State Sen­ate show­down between incum­bent Sen­a­tor Mark Mul­let and chal­lenger Ingrid Ander­son. Both are Democ­rats. As recent­ly as 2016, the east King Coun­ty dis­trict sent two Repub­li­cans to the House.

Belling­ham and What­com Coun­ty used to be a “swing” cor­ner of the state.

Nowa­days, “Bel­ly­wash” is a lib­er­al bas­tion, anchor­ing the all-Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­isla­tive del­e­ga­tion from the 40th Dis­trict. The next-door 42nd Dis­trict was drawn to bunch togeth­er con­ser­v­a­tive towns in the coun­ty. It sent two Demo­c­ra­t­ic House mem­bers to Olympia in last month’s election.

Rur­al Wash­ing­ton has moved right.

The Repub­li­cans swept leg­isla­tive races in the 19th Dis­trict of South­west Wash­ing­ton. In 1972, anti-war Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial can­di­date George McGov­ern won in only two of Washington’s thir­ty-nine coun­ties. Come 2016 and 2020, Don­ald Trump car­ried both Grays Har­bor and Pacif­ic Counties.

The North­west has lived up to the “Left Coast” label attached by reac­tionary Wall Street Jour­nal edi­to­r­i­al writ­ers. Wash­ing­ton and Ore­gon have backed Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­nees in the last nine pres­i­den­tial elec­tions. Trump took just 38.77% of Washington’s vote, bare­ly crack­ing forty per­cent in Oregon.

Alas, it’ll be a while before I make it back to Okanogan Coun­ty at elec­tion sea­son. Biden-Har­ris took just 41.82% of the county’s vote last month.

And the rur­al par­tial­ly con­ser­v­a­tive Demo­c­rat, once a fix­ture of Washington’s polit­i­cal cul­ture, has become as endan­gered as the spot­ted owl.

The Democ­rats did get more votes in Cen­tral and East­ern Wash­ing­ton – Biden-Har­ris nar­row­ly car­ried the city of Wenatchee – but no breakthroughs.

The D’s field­ed an out­stand­ing State Sen­ate can­di­date, Danielle Garbe Reser, in the 16th Dis­trict (Wal­la Wal­la), but she lost by a near­ly three-to-two margin.

In the 6th Dis­trict (Spokane Coun­ty), Repub­li­can State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jen­ny Gra­ham has used her Face­book page to offer links to con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists, and left an obscen­i­ty-laced pone mes­sage with the reporter who exposed it.

She was reelect­ed by a 7,500-vote margin.

Occa­sion­al­ly, there are signs of hope for a Demo­c­ra­t­ic revival. Barack Oba­ma was an A stu­dent who cap­tured a string of B’s in 2008: He received great ear­ly year recep­tions in Bend Ore­gon, Boise, Ida­ho, and Boze­man, Mon­tana. He spent the Fourth of July in Butte, Mon­tana, and is singing its prais­es in his new memoir.

The Biden-Har­ris cam­paign offered a sweep­ing eco­nom­ic recov­ery plan to rur­al Amer­i­ca, but in a year when cam­paign­ing was constricted.

The trend, how­ev­er, appears unbreak­able. Don­ald Trump has dri­ven away once-Repub­li­can sub­urbs and exurbs. Democ­rats can thank him for recap­ture of the State Sen­ate in a 2017 spe­cial elec­tion, and for a King Coun­ty line­up where you have to go to Skykomish to find a Repub­li­can legislator.

The Inland West has tak­en a dif­fer­ent turn.

Sym­bol­ic, last Mon­day, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Dan New­house became chair of the Con­gres­sion­al West­ern Cau­cus, which rails against “fed­er­al inter­fer­ence” while speak­ing for the oil and gas indus­try, tim­ber com­pa­nies, cor­po­rate agri­cul­ture, and America’s heav­i­ly sub­si­dized min­ing industry.

It’s as far as you can come from William Jen­nings Bryan, but that’s who rep­re­sents Okanogan Coun­ty in Con­gress these days.