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Sunday, December 30, 2018

Last Year and Last Election Voted Percentages



From left to right: Last Year Voted Percentages from the 2018 WA VRDB for 2018, 2016, and NULL (e.g. Never Voted)

Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Age and Turnout in WA GE 2018

Summary

For Whatcom County and the state as a whole, age bins under 40 (with few exceptions) continue to  chose to let late GenX, Boomers and Postwar generations decide political realities. However, Whatcom County shows much greater youth participation than WA State as a whole. Furthermore, migratory patterns of youth voters suggest that housing stability or "a stable residence address" my be a strong determinant in youth voting patterns.
Whatcom County had 77% turnout of registered voters which was 5% points higher than the state average. Whatcom County also had higher turnout for Millennial and GenX age bins. Left axis is votes, bottom axis represents age bins, top and right axis represents turnout percentage per age bin as delineated by the blue line. For all of WA State, see charts below the break. Click to enlarge the charts.

Thursday, December 6, 2018

Posteriors: That 42nd LD Race

The WA 42nd LD races this year can be described as bittersweet for the Democratic Party.  On the one hand, these three races were as close as the Democrats have come to Republican totals since 2010 when Kelli Linville and Al Jensen both lost close races to Jason Overstreet and Vincent Buys. In 2012, 2014 and 2016, the Democrats were shut out of the 42nd despite often ferocious and relatively expensive campaigns. Note that these numbers for this post are pre-recount totals.  The recount changed little. -RMF 11:05 AM 12/7/2018

But this year,  one narrow (981 votes) victory for Sharon Shoemake sends a lonely Whatcom Democrat to Olympia matched with Republicans Doug Ericksen and Luanne VanWerven. The Ericksen(R)/Vargas(D) contested State Senate seat which was lost by 46 votes is particularly poignant. All the more so since Pos. 2 winner Sharon Shewmake(D) had aggregated contributions and independent expenditures that were only 30% of the same for losing Senate candidate Pinky Vargas(D). Campaign expenditures were a comparatively minimal $48K for the losing Pos. 1 candidate Justin Boneau(D). Mr. Boneau lost by only 80 votes to Luanne VanWerven(R):