Number of elections | 34 |
---|---|
Voted Democratic | 19 |
Voted Republican | 14 |
Voted other | 1[a] |
Voted for winning candidate | 23 |
Voted for losing candidate | 11 |
Washington is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Since its admission to the Union in November 1889, the state has participated in 33 United States presidential elections.[1] It has had twelve electoral votes since 2012, when it gained a tenth congressional district during reappropriation based on the results of the 2010 U.S. census.[2][3] Washington has conducted its presidential elections through mail-in voting since 2012 for general elections and 2016 for party primaries.[4]
In the 1892 presidential election, incumbent president Benjamin Harrison received 41.45% of the popular vote in Washington and obtained the state's four electoral votes in his unsuccessful re-election campaign.[5] Washington generally favored the Republican Party in presidential elections until 1932, reflecting its state and congressional voting patterns.[6] The state was won by Progressive Party presidential nominee Theodore Roosevelt in the 1912 election; Roosevelt, who had been a Republican during his presidency, remains the most only third party candidate to have won Washington's presidential election.[6][7]
From 1932 to 1948, Democratic candidates won Washington in landslide victories for the presidency and state offices as a result of the Great Depression and New Deal.[6][8] Washington was characterized as a swing state for the remainder of the 20th century and voted 21 times for the winning candidate from 1892 to 1996.[6][7] Since 1984, no Republican candidate has won a presidential election in Washington.[9] In 2009, American journalist Ron Brownstein referred to Washington and 17 other states collectively as the "blue wall" due to its strong preference for Democrats.[10][11]
Washington is typically thought of as politically divided by the Cascade Mountains, with Western Washington generally being liberal and Eastern Washington generally being conservative.[12] However, due to Democratic dominance in the Seattle metropolitan area, which has the majority of the state's population, Washington is generally labeled as a blue state.[13][14] The state adopted a single-ballot blanket primary system in 1936 to replace earlier party primaries; until 2020, these were non-binding and not used to determine delegates in national party conventions.[15][16]
Washington state has signed the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an interstate compact in which signatories award all of their electoral votes to the winner of the federal-level popular vote in a presidential election, even if there are other candidate won some of individual signatorys' popular vote. However, it has not yet gone into force as of 2023.[17]
Key for parties |
---|
American Independent Party – (AI)
Constitution Party – (C)
Democratic Party – (D)
Farmer-Labor Party – (FL)
Green Party – (G)
Independent candidate – (I)
Libertarian Party – (LI)
Libertarian Party – (LI-1932)
People's Party – (PO)
Prohibition Party – (PRO)
Progressive Party (1912) – (PR-1912)
Progressive Party (1924) – (PR-1924)
Progressive Party (1948) – (PR-1948)
Reform Party – (RE)
Republican Party – (R)
Socialist Labor Party of America – (SLP)
Union Party – (U)
Note – A double dagger (‡) indicates the national winner. |
Year | Winner | Runner-up | Other candidate[b] | EV | Ref. | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Candidate | Votes | % | Candidate | Votes | % | Candidate | Votes | % | ||||||
Benjamin Harrison (R) | 36,460 | 41.4% | Grover Cleveland (D)‡ | 29,802 | 33.9% | James B. Weaver (PO) | 19,165 | 21.8% | 4 | |||||
William Jennings Bryan (D) | 53,314 | 57.0% | William McKinley (R)‡ | 39,153 | 41.8% | Joshua Levering (PRO) | 968 | 1.0% | 4 | |||||
William McKinley (R)‡ | 57,456 | 53.4% | William Jennings Bryan (D) | 44,833 | 41.7% | John Woolley (PRO) | 2,363 | 2.2% | 4 | |||||
Theodore Roosevelt (R)‡ | 101,540 | 70.0% | Alton B. Parker (D) | 28,098 | 19.4% | Eugene V. Debs (S) | 10,023 | 6.9% | 5 | |||||
William Howard Taft (R)‡ | 106,062 | 57.7% | William Jennings Bryan (D) | 58,691 | 31.9% | Eugene V. Debs (S) | 14,177 | 7.7% | 5 | |||||
Theodore Roosevelt (PR-1912) | 113,698 | 35.2% | Woodrow Wilson (D)‡ | 86,840 | 26.9% | William Howard Taft (R) | 70,445 | 21.8% | 7 | |||||
Woodrow Wilson (D)‡ | 183,388 | 48.1% | Charles Evans Hughes (R) | 167,208 | 43.9% | Allan L. Benson (S) | 22,800 | 6.0% | 7 | |||||
Warren G. Harding (R)‡ | 223,137 | 56.0% | James M. Cox (D) | 84,298 | 21.1% | Parley P. Christensen (FL) | 77,246 | 19.4% | 7 | |||||
Calvin Coolidge (R)‡ | 220,224 | 52.2% | Robert M. La Follette (PR-1924) | 150,727 | 35.8% | John W. Davis (D) | 42,842 | 10.2% | 7 | |||||
Herbert Hoover (R)‡ | 335,844 | 67.1% | Al Smith (D) | 156,772 | 31.3% | Verne L. Reynolds (SLP) | 4,068 | 0.8% | 7 | |||||
Franklin D. Roosevelt (D)‡ | 353,260 | 57.5% | Herbert Hoover (R) | 208,645 | 33.9% | William Hope Harvey (LI-1932) | 30,308 | 4.9% | 8 | |||||
Franklin D. Roosevelt (D)‡ | 459,579 | 66.4% | Alf Landon (R) | 206,892 | 29.9% | William Lemke (U) | 17,463 | 2.5% | 8 | |||||
Franklin D. Roosevelt (D)‡ | 462,145 | 58.2% | Wendell Willkie (R) | 322,123 | 40.6% | Norman Thomas (S) | 4,586 | 0.6% | 8 | |||||
Franklin D. Roosevelt (D)‡ | 486,774 | 56.8% | Thomas E. Dewey (R) | 361,689 | 42.2% | Norman Thomas (S) | 3,824 | 0.4% | 8 | |||||
Harry S. Truman (D)‡ | 486,774 | 56.8% | Thomas E. Dewey (R) | 361,689 | 42.2% | Henry A. Wallace (PR-1948) | 3,824 | 0.4% | 8 | |||||
Dwight D. Eisenhower (R)‡ | 599,107 | 54.3% | Adlai Stevenson (D) | 492,845 | 44.7% | Douglas MacArthur (C) | 7,290 | 0.7% | 9 | |||||
Dwight D. Eisenhower (R)‡ | 620,430 | 53.9% | Adlai Stevenson (D) | 523,002 | 45.4% | Eric Hass (SLP) | 7,457 | 0.6% | 9 | |||||
Richard Nixon (R) | 620,430 | 50.7% | John F. Kennedy (D)‡ | 523,002 | 48.3% | Eric Hass (SLP) | 7,457 | 0.9% | 9 | |||||
Lyndon B. Johnson (D)‡ | 779,881 | 62.0% | Barry Goldwater (R) | 470,366 | 37.4% | Eric Hass (SLP) | 7,772 | 0.6% | 9 | |||||
Hubert Humphrey (D) | 616,037 | 47.2% | Richard Nixon (R)‡ | 588,510 | 45.1% | George Wallace (AI) | 96,990 | 7.4% | 9 | |||||
Richard Nixon (R)‡ | 837,135 | 56.9% | George McGovern (D) | 568,334 | 38.6% | John G. Schmitz (AI) | 58,906 | 4% | 9 | |||||
Gerald Ford (R) | 717,323 | 50.0% | Jimmy Carter (D)‡ | 717,323 | 46.1% | Eugene McCarthy (I) | 36,986 | 2.4% | 8[c] | |||||
Ronald Reagan (R)‡ | 865,244 | 49.7% | Jimmy Carter (D) | 650,193 | 37.3% | John B. Anderson (I) | 185,073 | 10.6% | 9 | |||||
Ronald Reagan (R)‡ | 1,051,670 | 55.8% | Walter Mondale (D) | 807,352 | 42.9% | David Bergland (LI) | 8,844 | 0.5% | 10 | |||||
Michael Dukakis (D) | 933,516 | 50.0% | George H. W. Bush (R)‡ | 903,835 | 48.5% | Ron Paul (LI) | 17,240 | 0.9% | 10 | |||||
Bill Clinton (D)‡ | 993,037 | 43.4% | George H. W. Bush (R) | 731,234 | 32.0% | Ross Perot (I) | 541,780 | 23.7% | 11 | |||||
Bill Clinton (D)‡ | 1,123,323 | 49.8% | Bob Dole (R) | 840,712 | 37.3% | Ross Perot (RE) | 201,003 | 8.9% | 11 | |||||
Al Gore (D) | 1,247,652 | 50.1% | George W. Bush (R)‡ | 1,108,864 | 44.6% | Ralph Nader (G) | 103,002 | 4.1% | 11 | |||||
John Kerry (D) | 1,510,201 | 52.8% | George W. Bush (R)‡ | 1,304,894 | 45.6% | Ralph Nader (I) | 23,283 | 0.8% | 11 | |||||
Barack Obama (D)‡ | 1,750,848 | 57.3% | John McCain (R) | 1,229,216 | 40.2% | Ralph Nader (I) | 29,489 | 1% | 11 | |||||
Barack Obama (D)‡ | 1,755,396 | 56.2% | Mitt Romney (R) | 1,290,670 | 41.3% | Gary Johnson (LI) | 42,202 | 1.4% | 12 | |||||
Hillary Clinton (D) | 1,742,718 | 52.5% | Donald Trump (R)‡ | 1,221,747 | 36.8% | Gary Johnson (LI) | 160,879 | 4.9% | 8[d] | |||||
Joe Biden (D)‡ | 2,369,612 | 58.0% | Donald Trump (R) | 1,584,651 | 38.8% | Jo Jorgensen (LI) | 80,500 | 2% | 12 |