What Happened In Washington State On Tuesday?

Well we still don't know all the details. Only around 70% of the votes were counted by Thursday morning in Washington's top-two jungle primaries. But in the statewide race-- Maria Cantwell's reelection-- about twice as many Democrats voted as Republicans. That filtered down to the three crucial congressional races as well. The big picture for the House is that there are 6 Democrats and 4 Republicans in the Washington House congressional delegation. None of the Democrat seats are in jeopardy. But 3 of the Republican seats are. There's a better than 50/50 chance that in January the Washington delegation will be 9 Democrats and one Republican (Dan Newhouse). These are the 4 Republican-held districts with their PVIs:

• WA-03 (Jaime Herrera Beutler): R+4
• WA-04 (Dan Newhouse): R+13
• WA-05 (Cathy McMorris Rodgers): R+8
• WA-08 (open- Dave Reichert): even

Trump won the third district with 49.9%, won the fourth district with 57.9%, won the 5th district with 52.2% and lost the 8th district 44.7%. Thursday morning, Dave Wasserman from the Cook Report tweeted that the 3 districts with big urban/rural divides as exactly where Republicans are apt to be in trouble in November and used as examples the seats occupied by Herrera Beutler (Portland suburbs), McMorris Rodgers (Spokane) and Reichert (Seattle suburbs). Wasserman and most others who follow House elections closely attribute that to "pathetic Republican turnout, which then allows anti-Trump energy in suburbs to put Democrats in contention." That was the real story in Washington on Tuesday.

In the 8th district, Republican voters coalesced around Dino Rossi and with 77.6% of the precincts counted, he was the top voter getter with 49,071. When you combine his vote with the 2 other GOP candidates, the Republican vote in the 8th district adds up to 53,,570. But when you add up all the Democratic votes you get 58,032, a big warning sign for Rossi as we head towards November. At this point, I'd bet on Kim Schrier being the next member of Congress, not Dino Rossi.

The big deal race where no one thought there would be a real battle is WA-05, the eastern third of the state. It's a huge district that includes Spokane and a lot of rural and small-town Washington and the seat is occupied by Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the highest ranking Republican in the House, a dull Trump rubber stamp. Her Trump affinity score is a stunning 97.8, one of the most disgraceful in Congress-- total Trump enabler.

Two-thirds of the WA-05 voters live in Spokane, which was represented by Lisa Brown while she was the Majority Leader of the Washington state House. When she retired from the legislature she was named chancellor of Washington State University (Spokane), where her most important achievement was building a medical school that trains doctor for rural medicine, a crucial development in the lives of the people outside Spokane. On Tuesday she stunned the district by coming within one point of McMorris Rodger-- and that was before the story of McMorris' crackpot fundraiser with Devin Nunes broke. With 78.6% of precincts counted last night (162 of 206), McMorris had 68,475 votes  (47.8%) to Brown's 67,040 (46.8%).

Back in April, the Spokesman-Review was already predicting a tight race, largely based on voters' mostly negative views of Trump.

The race between U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and former WSU Spokane Chancellor Lisa Brown is shaping up to be a bruising race, said H. Stuart Elway of Elway Research Inc.

In a recent survey of 403 registered voters in the district, incumbent McMorris Rodgers had a 6-percentage-point lead over Brown, with 44 percent saying they plan to vote for the Republican incumbent and 38 percent saying they plan to vote for the Democratic challenger. Another 3 percent said they plan to vote for someone else, and 16 percent are undecided.

The overall poll has a margin of error of 5 percentage points, so the race is within the margin and McMorris Rodgers’ lead is “not statistically significant,” Elway said. Being under 50 percent is a worry for any incumbent.

...One of the biggest indicators of how survey respondents say they are likely to vote was their view of the job President Trump is doing. Half of the people polled said they disapprove of the job Trump is doing, while 45 percent said they approve.

When asked whether they “strongly” or “somewhat” approve or disapprove of the job he’s doing, men were about equally divided, with 26 percent saying they strongly approve and 30 percent saying they strongly disapprove.

Yesterday WXLY reported that new numbers have been going better for Brown. "As of Wednesday evening, the Spokane County Elections Office announced that incumbent Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican, had 44.25 percent of the vote while Lisa Brown, a Democrat had 50.93 percent of the vote... Typically, primary elections typically see 30 percent of voters cast their ballots at most, but yesterday some 45 percent decided to make their voices heard. “We've seen turnout just skyrocket,” shared Spokane County auditor Vicky Dalton. Please consider contributing to Brown's campaign by clicking on the 2018 Blue America congressional thermometer on the right.

Even before the new numbers had been released, the Spokesman-Review reported that Washington Republicans are in big trouble.

Up and down the long primary ballot, there were signs of unusual Democratic strength and few Republican bulwarks. They start, of course, with the 5th Congressional District, where Democratic challenger Lisa Brown is fewer than 600 votes behind incumbent Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers at the end of the first night’s count.

...In southwest Washington’s 3rd Congressional District, incumbent Republican Rep. Jamie Herrera Beutler is at 41 percent, about 5,000 votes ahead of Democrat Carolyn Long. But like Brown, Long has a lead in Clark County, the home of Vancouver, and unlike Brown, she split the Democratic vote with three other candidates.

In the 8th Congressional District-- a suburban, exurban and rural Republican stronghold of King and Pierce counties that was made even stronger in the most recent redistricting by reaching across the Cascades to add Chelan, Douglas and Kittitas counties-- Republican Dino Rossi finished on top of a crowded race for an open seat. Democrat Kim Schrier, a physician, has a lead of less than 1,400 votes for the second spot. But Democrats Jason Rittereiser, a deputy prosecutor, and Shannon Hader, a public health official, finished third and fourth, and the combined total of those three is greater than Rossi’s total at this point.

If Rossi can’t capture the seat in November, it would be the first time it wasn’t in Republican hands since it was created after the 1980 census.

...In Spokane County, Democrats fared better than they have for years in some races, particularly in the 6th Legislative District. Jessa Lewis, a single mom and former national delegate for Bernie Sanders, is nearly 500 votes ahead of Jeff Holy, former law enforcement officer and a three-term House member trying to move up to the state Senate. Kay Murano, an executive director of the Low Income Housing Consortium, is leading incumbent Republican Rep. Mike Volz, the chief deputy county treasurer, by almost 1,500 votes.