The election is over for most of the country, though, of course, we still have about a third of the ballots cast in Washington State still to count. While 48 others states have counted at least 96% of their ballots according to Real Clear Politics, only Utah (at 78% counted) is lagging anywhere near WA in still trying to get its election-day work done.
That’s not so stay that we can’t start reading some tea leaves from our state’s election results. So, Shift will provide a few perspectives for your consideration over the next few days, starting with these:
- It was essentially a status quo election, and a good night to be an incumbent (isn’t it almost always), especially a Democrat incumbent. All 10 federal incumbents won with 57% or more – seven of them Democrats. All four incumbent statewide office holders (along with three sitting liberal Supreme Court Justices) won, and Democrats won the three partisan open-seat statewides they previously held. Every Democrat state legislator running for re-election won, none with less than 53%, though one Republican Senator lost and three GOP House members are behind.
- Jay Inslee has proven again that he is the governor for all…of King County.For the second straight election, Jay Inslee lost the election in the 38 counties outside of King. However, according to the first-night numbers, Jay won King County by 258,853, offsetting Bill Bryant’s advantage in the other 38 counties, which the GOP challenger won by 2,052. Evidently it isn’t enough that Jay use to drive (what a union guy who has actually done it would call “operating”) a bulldozer when it comes to finding votes outside the state’s largest county.
- Seattle is revolting!A paraphrase from the title of an old Wizard of Id cartoon seems to perfectly capture the fact that whiny Seattle types are not ready to accept the election results just yet. From the liberal Seattle blog Crosscut, the verdict is “here’s where progressive Northwest readers will look for a ray of hope. What I can offer is that our country is very screwed up, but we’re resilient. We’ve overcome huge crises: We ended slavery, we fought back after Pearl Harbor, we dug our way out of the Great Depression. We haven’t elected a fascist before, but we’ve beaten them abroad, and we can do it at home.”
Or, from the even more liberal blog PubliCola, “they now control the White House, the House, and the Senate. That’s the lesson of last night. Understanding bigotry and resentment isn’t the answer. Leading on policy is. And liberals at the state, regional, and local level here in Washington set an example on that score last night. At the national level, that’s what Democrats should be listening to.”
And, finally, from the folks at the King County Labor Council, who are already heading to the barricades: “Brothers and Sisters, Although the results from the Presidential Election were shocking…We must fight for each other and oppose the type of divisiveness that President-Elect Trump has spread across our nation…Today, several organizations are banding together to show that despite national election results, we will work together, that we can do better, that Seattle and Washington state will help lead the way. Please join us today for post-election rallies.”
More lessons to come, in the days ahead…
