Rubio wins WA GOP’s first straw poll while new report says West leaning more left

The countdown has already begun for the 2016 presidential election.

More than 450 Republican leaders and activists gathered in Ocean Shores for a weekend conference, and held their first straw poll of this election cycle.

In the race for president, Florida Senator Marco Rubio came in first, former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels came in second and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal placed third.

There conference was underway just as a report came out saying that the West is only becoming more liberal.

A political generation ago, the West signaled the nation’s rightward swing, from the emergence of Ronald Reagan to the success of tax-limitation ballot measures in California and Colorado.

Now, however, the West has become largely Democratic terrain.

Voters in Washington state in November legalized marijuana and upheld the legality of gay marriage. New Mexico was once a tightly contested state, but Republicans ceded it to Democrats in the presidential campaign.

There are, as always, exceptions.

Lightly populated Idaho and Wyoming remain strongly Republican, as does Utah. Democrats are struggling in Arizona, where the immigration debate has given Republicans a lock on statewide offices but may provide Democrats an opening by firming up their support among the state’s growing Hispanic population.

Still, the overall trend is clear, according to analysts on all sides of the political spectrum.

“It’s just a different world,” said Bill Carrick, a Democratic strategist in Los Angeles who has worked widely in the region. “Nevada became the next California and now Arizona looks like it will become the next Nevada. […] It’s just pushing the West further and further from Republicans.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.