What went right (left?) in Washington

In a sea of red, Washington Democrats bucked the national trend. I am writing this memo because I believe it is time to stop pointing fingers and talking about what went wrong, and instead look at what went right, and learn from it.

As the rest of the nation saw an average shift of six points toward Donald Trump, Washington state held the line, functionally stopping any rightward shift among its electorate. We delivered the strongest Democratic performance in all fifty states. Democrats won every statewide office and, for the fifth straight campaign cycle, added seats in the state legislature. Looking at every statewide race, Washington actually shifted 0.15 percent toward the Democratic Party in 2024.

Demographics alone cannot explain our success. Oregon, our sister state across the Columbia River, which shares our Pacific Northwest values and culture and similar demographics, still experienced a two-point shift toward the Trump ticket. States like Massachusetts and Vermont, which are whiter and more highly educated than Washington’s electorate, still moved eight and three points respectively toward the right.

I also believe my job as Chair is not to keep any of this a secret. In fact, I want more states to follow our lead. So how did we do it? I credit Democrats’ success in Washington to five key factors.

1. A professional, year-round team at the state party.
2. A field operation focused on turnout and built to win.
3. Structural advantages that make it easier to vote.
4. A bigger tent delivers a bigger impact.
5. Progressive policies are popular.

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1. A professional, year-round team

Washington Democrats is one of the largest and most professionalized state parties in the country. As the first state party to unionize, we have the benefits of long-term, year-round staff who bring institutional knowledge and deep community connections to the table. We liberally share our talents with campaigns, loaning our professional, full-time data team to the Coordinated Campaign each election cycle. This is the same data team that correctly predicted a path to victory for Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in Washington’s third congressional district before anyone else thought it was possible to flip that district in 2022.

As the first South Asian woman to lead a major state party in the United States, I have been focused on building party infrastructure throughout the entire state, including in deep-red areas, through rural voter outreach and by activating the aunties and uncles of our bustling and growing AANHPI community. Being one of the few state party chairs to earn a full-time salary allows me to devote all of my energy to developing my state’s organizing muscles. I was proud to lead the first state party organization to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris as our nominee when President Biden suspended his campaign, and to assist efforts within the ASDC to do the same.

Another quirk of this cycle was a six million dollar infusion from an out-of-state hedge fund owner to put four statewide initiatives on our ballots. Seeking to roll back our biggest progressive victories of the past decade — a cap-and-invest system limiting carbon emissions, a capital gains tax funding education, universal long-term care insurance, and a framework aiding the transition away from natural gas — Republicans thought they had a great turnout tool. My staff worked with our allies to ensure progressives turned out to protect those victories. Three of the four conservative initiatives failed spectacularly, and the fourth passed by a thin margin.

2. A field operation built to win

We built our statewide Coordinated Campaign by prioritizing local community experts over organizers flown in from allied groups. We appreciated the resources and capacity building we received throughout the 2024 cycle, but the field operation in Washington was built entirely by the state party and focused solely on turning out solid and lean Democratic universes. That gave individual campaigns carte blanche to focus on persuadable voters. Our statewide August primary provides an excellent trial run for turning out low-participation voters, and extra runway to test messaging, volunteer recruitment, and get-out-the-vote operations.

Our Coordinated Campaign was one of the largest in state history. Thirty field staff organized in every corner of the state and raised an army of volunteers who made 1.72 million phone calls, knocked on 248,000 doors, and sent 150,000 texts. Compared to swing states these numbers are unremarkable. Compared to other blue states that trended far more Republican this cycle, they demonstrate the outsized impact of a strong ground game. We put particular emphasis on relational organizing, hiring campus and constituency organizers focused on activating youth, Hispanic, and Native American communities.

3. Structural advantages that make it easier to vote

Automatic voter registration. One hundred percent vote by mail. Washington has unique characteristics that make it convenient to register, to vote, and to track your ballot from the moment you mail it or drop it in a return box through to when it is counted. Those same structural changes mean we are also capturing the universe of people who have never voted and may never vote. So while more raw votes were cast in 2024 than in 2016 or 2012, turnout as a percentage of registered voters was on par with the 2000 election. Despite that, we did a better job of turning out our base and Democratic-leaning voters: my data team estimates we turned out half a percent more base voters and three percent more leaners than the state GOP.

4. A bigger tent delivers a bigger impact

I lead a big-tent party that includes both a Progressive Caucus co-chair and a Blue Dog Caucus co-chair. Anyone talking about running authentic candidates should look no further than Washington state. Candidates in R+5 districts were not echoing Seattle-area talking points. At the same time, our state party welcomed the participation of the uncommitted movement and was one of the first state parties in the nation to pass a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Giving everyone a voice at the table, and letting the grassroots make decisions, helped build unity and avoid bitter resentments among segments of our base.

Washington’s strong union membership, combined with a thriving environmental movement, has supported pro-environment, pro-union candidates up and down the ballot for decades. We work with union leadership and members, environmental organizations, and businesses to organize on behalf of candidates who protect our rights, make the economy more worker friendly, and prioritize clean air and clean water. The Washington Education Association helped bring hundreds of teachers out to canvass in swing counties and population centers this cycle, using our messaging and working with the Coordinated Campaign.

5. Progressive policies are popular

Our losses in 2024 must not be allowed to make us turn on one another, or on the policies at the root of our party. Last but not least, I credit our success to the fact that progressive policies are popular. When we can show our policies in action and make people’s lives better at the state level, we win more elections.

What do I mean by that? For starters, Washington has the highest minimum wage in the country. We also have the best overtime policy, paid family leave, working family tax credits, expanded childcare, a focus on the trades, and strong labor unions. Democratic leadership has made Washington one of the best states to open and run a business, and one of the best states to be a worker. It has also focused on the problems voters care most about: climate change, responsible public lands stewardship, gun safety, and investments in education. Those popular policies give Democratic candidates credibility with voters.

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Where do we go from here?

Washington’s combination of professional, full-time party staff, coordinated bridge-building among constituencies with real ideological differences, and candidates who can point to policy wins that directly improved voters’ lives are all ingredients of the secret sauce that let this state withstand the national shift.

Washington state has forged a blueprint to turn our country blue. But it will take all of us working together to make it possible.

Shasti Conrad, Chair, Washington State Democrats

Despite being a first-time chair, I led my state party to hold serve while the rest of the country tipped, and sometimes toppled, red. We did it on the backs of our staff, our candidates, and our volunteers. My hope is that the lessons we gleaned from Washington in 2024 will power our resurgence at the national level.

Shasti Conrad
Chair, Washington State Democrats