The recipe for rebuilding the Democratic Party after a historic loss in the presidential race is unlikely to be found in Washington state.
The Evergreen State reports similar results for Vice President Harris and President Biden. That’s an outlier in an election that saw Biden’s eight million-vote victory evaporate into a nearly million-vote victory for former president-turned-President-elect Donald Trump, according to vote totals at the time this article was posted.
Those 13 million votes say more about the Democrats than about Trump, according to Victor Menaldo, professor of political science at the University of Washington.
“Their message does not resonate with the majority of Americans, especially those in the theaters of war,” Menaldo said.
Menaldo looks at things like the cumulative inflation that has stalled U.S. budgets since the pandemic. As price increases moderated closer to the election, Menaldo acknowledges there were few opportunities for Democrats to reshape the narrative.
“They had to find ways to offset that liability, but they weren’t able to do that sufficiently,” he said.
Congressman Adam Smith, a Democrat in Washington’s Ninth District, which covers much of King County, wastes no time in writing the autopsy for his party’s 2024 bid for the White House. Smith says that “without any doubt” Tuesday’s results show that the left-wing party is “out of touch”. He believes the reality that has played out in liberal-leaning places like Seattle since the pandemic was a cautionary tale rather than an advertisement for the rest of the country.
“Most of the rest of the country can see what has happened in the Seattle-King County region in terms of our problems with crime, homelessness and substance abuse,” Smith said.
The latest results show Harris performing similarly to Biden’s 2020 performance, an outlier for Harris that falls short of Biden’s results in battleground states in the South and the Rust Belt. That achievement, Menaldo agrees, however, should not make Washington the progressive standard-bearer for future elections.
“We’re just very wealthy and in many ways not representative of the rest of the country,” Menaldo said, pointing to the technology sector, environmental issues and export-oriented economy as key differences.
Smith says the progressive path forward is a simplistic message. A message that he believes should have a broader appeal.
“Are you going to get a nominee who is reflective of the broad country, or reflective of those narrow parts that reflect the far left?” said Smith.
Smith looks at the issues of public safety and dismantling the police movement, the calls from some of his party’s more left-wing sects to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the criminal justice reform that fails to help people accountable at the level that meets the electoral wishes of the country.
“My frustration is that people on the left never seem to want to adapt,” Smith said. “If you look at my voting record, I am quite left-wing on a lot of points. I believe in progressive priorities, but I also believe in personal responsibility, results and hard work. And those things are not incompatible.”
“I want opportunity for everyone, I want to confront racism, sexism, bigotry and prejudice, but you have to do it in a sensible, healthy way, which we are not doing,” Smith continued.
In the top two in Washington’s general election, Smith defeated a challenge from the left from fellow Democrat Melissa Chaudry, securing 69% of the vote at last check. Smith has not previously been shy about challenging his party — he was among the first to call on President Biden to drop out of the race after a debate appearance last summer that sparked widespread concern about the 46th president’s age. Smith argues that Biden should never have run for re-election and that the party should embrace open nomination processes without a candidate considered a foregone conclusion.
“Let’s have a competition. Not, “Gosh, it’ll be hard.” No, we need that in the future to show that we are willing to compete,” says Smith.
Smith said he is still deciding how he will represent Washingtonians in the U.S. House of Representatives over the next two years. the best for my neighborhood.”
“One of my biggest missions is to try to get the Democratic Party to an acceptable place where we can go to people in Iowa and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and Michigan and, God help us, maybe even Texas and Mississippi and say you doesn’t. should vote for MAGA extremism. We have a better option,” says Smith.
