Why Washington lost its early presidential primary bid
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Washington is going to try again to become an early presidential primary state in 2028, after failing to make the shortlist for 2024.
Why it matters: States that hold earlier primaries hold greater sway over the presidential nominating contest, giving them outsized power in deciding the country's political future.
Catch up quick: Last week, the rule-making arm of the Democratic National Committee approved a new draft plan for which states will vote first in 2024. Washington didn't make the cut.
- That's likely because the Evergreen State is too politically left and too geographically west, Todd Donovan, a political science professor at Western Washington University, told Axios.
What they're saying: Presidential candidates want to snag a headline the day after a primary saying they won or outperformed expectations, Donovan said. But Washington's Pacific Time zone, plus the slow pace of counting ballots in its vote-by-mail elections, would make that more difficult.
- Washington also didn't meet the DNC's standard for electoral competitiveness, Donovan told us. The state votes reliably blue in presidential elections and favored President Biden by nearly 20 points in 2020.
- Tina Podlodowski, state Democratic Party chair, said in a statement to Axios that the DNC ended up preferring swing states. That includes Michigan and Georgia, two states whose primaries are set to move to an earlier date under the draft DNC plan.
Plus: DNC officials also were seeking geographic diversity, and Nevada is already one of the five first states to vote, Donovan noted.
- "Nevada and Washington would both be seen as 'the west,' even though they are three hours apart by plane," he said.
Flashback: Washington had pitched itself earlier this year as a good candidate for early voting, partly because it has a more diverse population than the current earliest states, Iowa and New Hampshire, which have been criticized as not being representative of the broader electorate.
- Iowa and New Hampshire are more than 80% white, while the latest data from the U.S. Census bureau pegs Washington as about 66% white.
The big picture: The draft primary calendar approved by the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee last Friday would remove Iowa from its first-in-the-nation perch, replacing it with South Carolina.
- The next states to vote would be Nevada, New Hampshire, Georgia and Michigan.
What's next: The new calendar must be approved by the full DNC in February, but it is likely to be adopted, Axios' Josh Kraushaar reported.