Rantz: Donald Trump created a red surge across the country, but blue Washington won’t budge

As the final ballots roll in, sending President-elect Donald Trump back to the White House, the trend is unmistakable: every state in the country has inched rightward by at least a point since 2020— except blue Washington.

Trump saw gains across the board, marking more vote percentages in every state but Washington. California led the way with a remarkable 12-point shift toward Trump compared to 2020. Red states like Florida got even redder, with a 9.7-point swing, and blue states are slightly more purple, with New York swinging 11.6 points to the right. Some of this has to do with 2020 being an odd year for elections given fear and fearmongering around COVID-19 changed voter habits, as did a larger embrace of absentee ballots that Democrats took advantage of better than Republicans did. But clearly Trump’s message to the working class voter resonated. Just not in the Evergreen state.

Washington is the bluest state with the smallest swing to the right. As of the latest tally, Trump did 0.05% better in 2024 than in 2020 and that number could shrink as the final votes are tabulated. So why is that?

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Why didn’t blue Washington state trend purple?

There are a few straightforward reasons why Washington got, if anything, a bit bluer.

Washington, with its sparse Republican base, saw virtually no presence from the Trump/Vance campaign. Neither Trump nor his running mate J.D. Vance held rallies in Washington — not because they didn’t want to, but because they didn’t need to. In a tight race, campaigns don’t waste resources on states that won’t deliver results.

Knowing there was no shot in Washington, the Trump campaign didn’t bother spending here to sway votes to the right. Republican candidates didn’t pour much money into their campaigns either; what was spent came late in the game.

Compounding this was the fallout from a contentious Republican convention in Spokane, where grassroots activists threw their endorsement to a gubernatorial candidate with no shot at surviving the primary. Donors, hesitant after this tumultuous convention, watched to see how Republican Dave Reichert would fare in the primary.

But Reichert emerged from the primary bruised. The GOP base didn’t see him as conservative enough, yet it was precisely his moderate conservatism that could have been his — and Washington’s — best chance for a Republican governor. Activists refused to accept that reality, dragging on their fight against Reichert and scaring off potential donors who might have helped him (and other candidates) deliver a pragmatic, conservative message.

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What role did the media play?

Washington media, especially in Seattle, was notably absent during campaign season.

They did the bare minimum, sidestepping their duty to fact-check outlandish claims from Democrats like Bob Ferguson or the deep-pocketed elite funding attack ads against the four ballot initiatives. When the media did cover the election, it was mostly to spotlight controversies — often exaggerated — around Republican candidates.

In some cases, left-wing media outlets actively helped Democrats and lobby for their causes. KING 5, the city’s “progressive” station, caters to the far-left crowd of Seattle. Meanwhile, other journalists seemed wary of risking backlash from a party likely to maintain power in Olympia. After all, Ferguson, much like Governor Jay Inslee, is notoriously thin-skinned when it comes to negative press, and journalists don’t want to risk being frozen out by one of the state’s most powerful politicians.

The result was that voters got neither balanced nor honest coverage of either local or national races. Seattle media have kept left-wing voters insulated in their ideological bubble, doing a disservice to the community. It’s no wonder so many of them can’t comprehend the appeal of Trump or other Republican candidates.

But there’s some silver lining in blue Washington

If you’re hoping Washington state may turn red, you’ll be disappointed. We’re a long way from that. But there’s an interesting data point in the election results.

Democrats spent millions to get their messages out. Ferguson spent nearly $14 million on his campaign. The Democrat-led campaigns to defeat the initiatives spent even more.

No on I-2117 spend over $16 million to main high gas prices. The campaign to keep a long-term care health plan mandate coughed up over $12 million. Wealthy donors spent over $4 million to keep a capital gains tax and special interest groups and unions like Democratic Governors Association, SEIU 775 Ballot Fund and Washington State Democratic Committee spent a combined total of more than $22 million. This isn’t even all the spending from Democrats.

Despite the millions poured into campaigns, Kamala Harris earned only a fraction of the votes Joe Biden did in 2020, with overall voter turnout down roughly 10% as of November 6th’s ballot count. We were told democracy was on the brink, that a “Nazi” was running for president, and that women’s lives were “literally” at stake. Yet for all the money spent, it seems the electorate didn’t budge any further left than it already was, even if it feels like we got bluer.

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