Primary colors: Election rules paint a picture

Picture a lake of blue in a landscape of red.

That’s the partisan breakdown of Spokane County, based on the results of Tuesday’s state primary, where voters for the first time in nearly 70 years were forced to vote for only the candidates of one party.

Those results, which were analyzed and mapped by The Spokesman-Review – and assigned the now familiar colors of red for Republican precincts and blue for Democratic ones – confirmed what political observers of both parties have long suspected about Eastern Washington’s most populous county.

The central core of the city of Spokane is a Democratic stronghold. From Shadle Park and Hillyard on the north side, down through West Central and the Gonzaga district and across Interstate 90 to East Central and the lower South Hill, more voters cast Democratic ballots than Republican ballots.

The suburban and rural areas are GOP country. From Deer Park and Mount Spokane on the northern boundaries, down through Medical Lake to the west and Liberty Lake to the east, past Moran Prairie and down to Spangle and Waverly at the top of the Palouse, the choice of ballots favored Republicans.

That’s based on the majority – or sometimes the plurality – of ballots cast in each precinct. Libertarians had a smattering of supporters throughout the county, but were always outnumbered by voters who opted out of the party races and asked for nonpartisan ballots. No precinct was solely for any one party.

The areas that seem truly up for grabs, say members of both parties, are those between the suburbs and the city core in the city of Spokane, and along the center of the city of Spokane Valley on either side of Sprague Avenue.

Spokane County Republican Chairwoman Robin Ball said she noticed the same trends when she looked at the results from Tuesday’s primary. While there are no surprises, the primary does offer data to back up what campaigns and candidates on both sides have long suspected.

“We know we’ve got some serious races on our hands,” said Ball.

Republicans think they can make some inroads in the center of that lake of blue, which is the Democratic stronghold of the 3rd Legislative District, she said. The 6th Legislative District, which swings around the city’s core from Indian Trail to the Moran Prairie, has long been a safe GOP district.

“I did notice it is tighter than we expected it might have been,” Ball said.

A Democrat hasn’t won a legislative race in the 6th since the mid-1930s. But Hugh Davis, a longtime Democratic activist, said Tuesday’s results suggest that district may be “drifting more toward balance” between the two parties, confirming what party activists have suspected for a long time.

“Democrats gained a little bit of ground,” Davis said.

Ball repeated what GOP leaders had been saying even before the primary votes were cast – that vote totals across the state would tend to favor Democrats because that party had more exciting races at the top of the ticket. Attorney General Christine Gregoire was matched against King County Executive Ron Sims, and Democrats had a close race to fill the attorney general’s slot.

Republicans had a spirited race for Eastern Washington’s open congressional seat, but that may not have been as big a draw because all three were coming from the fiscal and social conservative wing of the party.

“Democrats did a better job of turning out their voters than Republicans did,” Ball conceded.

Democrats considered the primary a “dry run” for the Nov. 2 general election when they plan to max out their votes for John Kerry, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray and others on the ballot.

Republicans at the top of the primary ballot, gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi and Rep. George Nethercutt, who is running against Murray, did not have a major “get out the vote” effort on Tuesday.

“They decided it was better to save their resources,” Ball said.

Tom Keefe, a former Democratic county chairman and one-time candidate for Congress, argued that parties shouldn’t have trouble turning out their base voters in a primary. But having the presidential race on the Nov. 2 ballot does add a new dimension to the general election, he said.

“It’s hard in a presidential year to predict anything, because of the huge spike in interest,” Keefe said.

For both parties, the key areas will be those that could be considered robin’s egg blue or pink, or just a few votes or percentage points over the edge for one party, he said.

For Republicans, that means concentrating on areas of central Spokane’s 3rd Legislative District, where voter turnout has been low for more than a decade. Even longtime Democrats may mark their ballots for an occasional Republican, Ball said.

“We’re seeing great response to some of our candidates in the 3rd,” she said.

For Democrats, it means looking for what Keefe called “entrepreneurial opportunities” in the 6th, where Republicans had a contentious primary for the state Senate seat. State Rep. Brad Benson beat appointed state Sen. Brian Murray, and will face Democrat Laurie Dolan in November.

“It’s a short time to the general, and bruises take time to heal,” Keefe said.

Analyzing the primary results has its limits, local political experts said, because there’s nothing to which they can be compared. Until this year, the state had a blanket primary, in which voters were free to split their ticket by picking one candidate for each office from any party.

“It’s a unique situation,” Keefe said.

This first opportunity to get a definitive party breakdown of Washington voters could also be the last. Voters were highly critical of the system forced on the state by federal courts, a reluctant Legislature and a governor’s veto. An initiative on the Nov. 2 ballot would change the system to eliminate the requirement to pick only one party’s candidates.