Washington Top-Two Primary of August 6

Posted on by August 7, 2024

Washington state held its top-two primary on August 6.  All of the statewide executive posts are up in presidential years.  In the race for Commissioner of Public Lands, five Democrats and two Republicans ran.  As of August 7, the two Republicans are occupying the first and second positions.  However, the votes are not all counted yet.  If the trend continues, there will be no Democrat on the November ballot for Commissioner of Public Lands.  Here is a link to the election returns.

In the Secretary of State’s race, Damon Townsend used the ballot label “No Labels”, and he placed third with 4.62%.  He appears to be the only candidate who appeared on a primary ballot so far this year with that label.  The No Labels organization took no steps to block Townsend’s use of that label.

Comments

Washington Top-Two Primary of August 6 — 18 Comments

  5. Tim Walz is a normal human being. So almost no one who reads this weirdo site that is written by weirdos for weirdos will like him. They like fellow psychopaths/sociopaths.

  7. Tim Walz may be a Minnesota prairie prog on paper, but he scans as a midwestern, Menard’s-shopping, deer-hunting, football-coaching, ice-fishing, butter-carving dad-bod normie. His sheer normalcy is a political superpower, particularly when contrasted to professional weirdo and Peter Thiel acolyte J.D. “The ‘D’ is for deviant!” Vance.

  9. The structure and content of the Republican Vice Presidential selection process taught us some important lessons. First, Donald Trump is easily manipulated by his broligarch fundraising overlords in Silicon Valley.

    Next, Trump failed to vet even the most superficial aspects of the deeply strange and broken J.D. Vance, as stories of couches, cat ladies, and dolphin porn keep rolling into the dialogue. Finally, we learned that none of the political calculus in their process worked.

    For the Democrats, there are also important lessons about Vice President Kamala Harris and how her team operates. Here’s why I think both the process of selecting Governor Tim Walz as her running mate and the outcome are important.

    The first is political, and I can hardly express my delight in their skill in executing this pick. Without explicitly saying it or playing into it, Harris demonstrated by word, action, process, and selection that she understood the assignment perfectly: make the best choice.

    The Republicans have been racing into the dull frame of their tired old Arthur Finkelstein model, but it won’t work. The Finkelstein model was to bellow “LIBERAL” at the top of one’s lungs until hypoxia set in.

    Arthur is a nearly forgotten character today, but if you’re Richard Winger’s age and worked in normal two-party (read: REAL) politics, you know who Arthur was. As political scientist Darrell West once said of Arthur, “I’ve detected five phrases he uses: ultraliberal, super-liberal, embarrassingly liberal, foolishly liberal, and unbelievably liberal.”

    The vaunted MAGA/GOP message machine is broken unless their targets fit into the neat cultural boxes they’ve programmed their stolid followers to obey. “Coastal liburl bad.” “Southern conservative good.” “Midwest is America. Coastal cities are liberal hellscapes.”

    They’re trying it on Walz today, and it will fail.

  10. There’s another element of Walz’s cheerful competence and get-it-done Midwest affect. Walls reeks of boring, midwestern administrative competence, again detached from the clichés of MAGA screeching about communism. He knows how to laugh about himself and engage with people outside an ideological bubble.

    By choosing him, Harris has denatured an ideological aspect of the election. They can continue to focus more on optimism, freedom, her more ebullient personality, and her optimistic vision of America.

    The lack of leaks is another enormous and positive sign. This was a secret until it wasn’t. It was a tightly held process until it was time to release it. This is what a functioning campaign looks like. Good campaigns leak on purpose. Bad campaigns just leak. Trump’s campaign is leaking like the Titanic.

    Walz will be a stellar contrast to the strange and sour Vance as he continues to grunt and grumble through interviews even Fox can’t fix in post. He’s a real guy. A bro. A dude. A guy who knows how to put on snow chains on tires, fix shit around the house, and lead people.

    Republicans Are Shook

    The wildly undisciplined MAGA messages against both Harris and Walz have one thing in common: panic.

    With Trump at war with his party — oh, Donald, thanks for helping put Georgia back in play — by attacking popular leaders in his own party and rehashing his old and politically stale “Muh stolen election” war stories, the GOP is nervous. Elected Republicans are getting more panicked by the day.

    This is not the headline you want three months from the election:

  11. Popular? Like who? I sure hope you don’t mean Brian Kemp or Brad Raffensperger.

    And speaking of Kemp and Raffensperger attempting election fraud again in 2024, has anyone been following the interesting and appalling case of Fulton County Board of Elections member Julie Adams getting harassed for trying to do the job she was elected to do?

    https://thefederalist.com/2024/05/23/lawsuit-fulton-county-election-board-wrongfully-withholding-records-from-gop-member/

    https://thefederalist.com/2024/08/07/courts-stall-georgia-election-officials-case-months-after-dems-threatened-her-for-refusing-certification/

    https://thefederalist.com/2024/08/08/georgia-elections-board-confirms-officials-right-to-reasonable-inquiry-before-certifying-elections/

    The Georgia Democrats, including nominal “Republicans” Raffensperger and Kemp-appointee John Fervier, seem to think that county BoEs’ job is fully ministerial leaving no room for using ones discretion. Which then begs the question, why even bother electing officials instead of hiring some pencil pushing apparatchik, if you aren’t going to allow them access to election data and deny them the right to withhold certification from (potentially) fraudulent results?

  13. The SOS is reporting the count of write-in votes this election. In the past, the SOS has not reported these, even though they were reported on county canvass reports.

    Dave Upthegrove (D) is nearly in second place based on votes pouring in from King County. Washington’s counting of votes is problematic because it can lead to a perception of vote manipulation or fraud.

    Larger counties process the mailed in ballots on an ongoing basis. They claim this is cost saving since they don’t have to hire any temp workers, or pay overtime. If you process 5% of the ballots each day, they can still complete voting counting in three weeks. They might process the votes in the order received. So imagine an older voter who fills out the ballot as soon as she receives it, just like she does with any bill. It is among the first to be received, and first to be counted.

    A voter who is always late on their bills, does not know how to use USPS mail, misplaced their ballot, will likely vote on the last day when pushed to vote by a canvasser. Their ballot will be among the last received, perhaps even after election day, and the last counted.

    These behavioral patterns correlate with partisan outlook. Democrats will tend to vote later than Republicans, and be counted later.

    Meanwhile smaller counties complete their vote counting in a couple of days. They only finish up any late arriving mail ballots.

    See Turnout Statistics. The weakest performing counties last reported on August 6 (election day). They will likely complete counting and make a report tomorrow.

    The next slowest counties, which tend to be larger (and more left leaning), report daily and will report again on Friday (August 9). The fastest reporting, who have nearly finished counting (99%), won’t make another report until as late as August 19, two weeks after the election.

  15. “Washington’s counting of votes is problematic because it can lead to a perception of vote manipulation or fraud.”

    It wouldn’t be a problem if people could have faith in the elections. But people have become so used to constant (attempted) manipulation and fraud, that now they jump on every perception. And who can blame them, since that is their only means of trying to ensure the security and integrity of elections.

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