WA Democrats double their congressional generic ballot lead from six to twelve points

An increas­ing num­ber of vot­ers in Wash­ing­ton State are plan­ning to vote for Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates for the Unit­ed States House in the com­ing midterms, while a shrink­ing per­cent­age are plan­ning to vote for Repub­li­can can­di­dates, NPI’s most recent sur­vey of the Wash­ing­ton State elec­torate has found.

51% of 1,039 like­ly 2022 vot­ers inter­viewed last week for NPI by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling said they would vote for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date if the elec­tion were being held now, while 39% said they would vote for the Repub­li­can candidate.

10% were not sure.

In Feb­ru­ary, when our last statewide poll field­ed, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic advan­tage was just six per­cent­age points. Now it’s twelve. In the span of just one sea­son, the mar­gin for Democ­rats in our research has dou­bled… and dur­ing a time when Repub­li­cans have been crow­ing that increas­es in the cost of liv­ing are going to pow­er a big red tsuna­mi that they expect to ride to victory.

The increased enthu­si­asm for Democ­rats is good news for Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Kim Schri­er, who rep­re­sents the only con­gres­sion­al dis­trict in the state — the 8th — that is expect­ed to be com­pet­i­tive this year. Most of the state’s ten con­gres­sion­al dis­tricts have either a strong Demo­c­ra­t­ic or Repub­li­can lean and can there­fore be expect­ed to elect a Demo­c­rat or a Repub­li­can no mat­ter what polit­i­cal winds hap­pen to be blow­ing, or what the nation­al land­scape looks like.

The new 1st, 2nd, 6th, 7th, 9th, and 10th Dis­tricts were all drawn to be Demo­c­ra­t­ic to vary­ing degrees, with the 7th and 9th the most Demo­c­ra­t­ic of all.

The 3rd, 4th, and 5th Dis­tricts, mean­while, were all drawn to be Republican.

The 8th is unlike the oth­er nine. It’s a true tossup dis­trict span­ning the Cas­cades that can be won by either par­ty and could go either way this November.

The new 8th includes sub­ur­ban, exur­ban, and rur­al precincts in five dif­fer­ent coun­ties: King, Sno­homish, Pierce, Kit­ti­tas, and Chelan. From its cre­ation in the 1980s until 2018, it was a Repub­li­can dis­trict that always elect­ed Republicans.

But in the last midterms, Democ­rats flipped it with Dr. Kim Schri­er, a pedi­a­tri­cian from the East­side of King Coun­ty who cam­paigned ener­get­i­cal­ly on healthcare.

Schri­er won reelec­tion in 2020 and is now in her sec­ond term. She’s being chal­lenged in her bid for a third term by sev­er­al Repub­li­cans, includ­ing King Coun­ty Coun­cilmem­ber Rea­gan Dunn, the son of one of the Repub­li­cans who used to hold the seat, for­mer Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jen­nifer Dunn.

Schri­er needs sub­ur­ban and exur­ban vot­ers to be enthu­si­as­tic about vot­ing Demo­c­ra­t­ic to have the best chance of defeat­ing Dunn or one of his fel­low Repub­li­cans this autumn. This new data sug­gests that enthu­si­asm is building.

While this is a statewide find­ing — gener­ic bal­lot ques­tions like this are not dis­trict or con­test-spe­cif­ic, which is why they are so named — we can see from look­ing at the crosstabs that momen­tum for Democ­rats is grow­ing in the por­tions of the state that Kim Schri­er and her Repub­li­can oppo­si­tion will be com­pet­ing in.

For exam­ple, in King Coun­ty, Democ­rats have a forty-point coun­ty­wide advan­tage on the gener­ic con­gres­sion­al bal­lot, up from twen­ty-three points in Feb­ru­ary. That’s sig­nif­i­cant. East King Coun­ty pow­ered Schri­er’s 2018 and 2020 vic­to­ries, and might just do so again in 2022 despite Repub­li­cans’ expectations.

Here is the text of the ques­tion we asked and the statewide num­bers again:

QUESTION: If the gen­er­al elec­tion for the Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives were being held today, would you vote for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic or Repub­li­can can­di­date from your district?

ANSWERS:

• Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date: 51%
• Repub­li­can can­di­date: 39%
• Not sure: 10%

Kim Schri­er’s cam­paign is one of many spon­sors of NPI’s research, but had no involve­ment in the design or exe­cu­tion of this sur­vey or the release of this finding.

Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray also appears to ben­e­fit­ing from increased enthu­si­asm for Democ­rats. As we report­ed last week, Mur­ray has widened her lead over like­ly Repub­li­can oppo­nent Tiffany Smi­ley from nine points in Feb­ru­ary to eleven points. It’s the first time this cycle that Mur­ray’s lead has widened between two of our statewide research polls as opposed to narrowing.

We’ll be releas­ing addi­tion­al find­ings from this sur­vey as the week progresses.