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Washington tilts further blue, bucking national election trend

So far it looks like Washington is the only state where voters favored the Democratic candidate at a higher margin than in 2020.

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Results are still trickling in, but the 2024 election shows a blue wave in national and state races in Washington.

The results are a stark contrast to the rest of the nation – even other Democratic strongholds.

Analysis from the Financial Times shows counties across the country and how the vote shifted between 2020 and 2024. President Donald Trump made big gains across the board even in traditionally blue states like New York and California. So far it looks like Washington is the only state where voters favored the Democratic candidate at a higher margin than in 2020.

“We should take a lot of joy in the fact that the things that we have been doing with the state are resonating with voters,” Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal said.

Jayapal won reelection by a wide margin, and Democrats are headed to win nearly all statewide offices. Three of the four conservative-backed initiatives on the ballot are also losing.

“Here in Washington state, I think we have a government that is much more intuitive for people as we saw with these ballot initiatives,” Jayapal said.

Even the last bellwether is no more. Clallam County, which has correctly predicted the presidential in every election since 1980 snapped a streak that was unmatched by the other 3,142 counties in the United States.

Voters from the North Olympic Peninsula significantly favor Kamala Harris in the polls. With 83 percent of the vote in, as of Friday morning, the Vice President carries more than an 8-point margin over now President-elect Trump.

It looks to be a larger wider margin than in 2020 even, when Clallam chose Biden by three points over Trump.

“The state has been trending blue. Red states seem to be getting redder,” KING 5 political analyst Rob McKenna said.

McKenna said nationwide voters chose one issue above all else. 

"It's really the economy that turned out to be most important," McKenna said.

Analysts said financial hardships hurt the incumbent party and benefited Trump and the Republicans.

"I think we've got to look very carefully at this and not see this election as the single date where we lost people. I think it's actually been over a couple decades, and we need to see which strategies really worked," Jayapal said of the 2024 national results.

In Washington, the Democrat-leaning results translated to governor too. Bob Ferguson carries a 12-point margin over Dave Reichert, as of Friday. This is a similar result to 2020 when Governor Inslee defeated his Republican challenger Loren Culp by 13 points.

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