Democrats' blue wall sturdy in PNW

Oregon and Washington voters mostly stuck with Democrats while other progressive states swung more forcefully toward the GOP

Arrows show magnitude of states’ shift toward Trump between 2020 and 2024. (Image courtesy Al Jazeera (!!))

Oregon and Washington are among the most steadfast states making up what remains of Democrats’ “blue wall” following Donald Trump’s convincing election win in which he grew his vote share significantly compared to 2020 in almost all progressive states except the two northwestern states.

Oregon saw a 1.41% Trump swing, the ninth smallest in the country, while Washington saw the smallest swing in the entire country at just 0.31%. Trump received a larger share of the vote in all states in 2024, compared to 2020.

Oregon and Washington’s west coast neighbor and political model, California, the home state of Trump’s opponent Kamala Harris, swung toward Trump by 4.61%; New York by 6.43%; New Jersey by 4.92%; Massachusetts by 4.38%, Illinois by 4.26%; Maryland by 3.77%; and Hawaii by 3.20%. None of those states were swing states, and all have long supported the Democratic nominee in presidential contests.

Why did Oregon and Washington stand relatively pat while other states, including other progressive states, swing more dramatically toward the Republican nominee? The short answer is I don’t know for sure. The longer and more interesting answer is that there are a number of plausible explanations, any number of which may have been contributing factors to the particularly stubborn leftiness of the states in the upper-left corner of the country.

Democrats in Oregon and Washington are really, really white

Trump famously made major gains among non-white working class voters, especially men, this year. In 2020, Biden beat Trump among Latino voters 65% to 32%. In 2024, Harris narrowly beat Trump with that traditionally Democratic demographic by only six points, 52% to 46%.

A smaller but perceptible red shift occurred among black voters. Biden won black voters with 92% of the vote in 2020; Harris, who is black, won only 78% this year. Asian voters swung five points toward Trump.

The tectonic rightward lurch of Latinos, echoed in smaller GOP gains with other non-white demographics, heralds a major challenge to the modern Democratic national coalition. It also is a big part of why Trump saw such big gains in progressive states with large non-white populations. He still lost those states, but the shrinking margin of defeat plowed to the way to his popular vote victory, the first by a Republican since 2004.

Left relatively untouched were states, like Oregon and Washington, that are both really progressive and really white. Forty-eight percent of white voters in Oregon are registered Democrat (34% Republican); 42% in Washington (38% GOP). Both states are near the top in the ranking of Democratic share of white voters. Harris held onto white college-educated voters, of which there are plenty in Oregon and Washington.

I’m pretty sure the whiteness of Oregon and Washington played a role in keeping them firmly in the diminished blue wall. It helps explain why California went more toward Trump, for example. But it cannot be the only explanation. For example, Massachusetts is really white, too, but moved more resoundingly toward Trump; same with New Hampshire (2.80%). Vermont, New England’s own private Oregon, voted more like its lily-white northwestern counterparts, moving 1.92% toward Trump.

Vote-by-mail probably isn’t it

I’m pretty sure Oregon Democrats believe the state’s voting system, which marries 100% vote-by-mail with no-consent automatic voter registration, gives them an electoral advantage. It probably does, but there’s not much evidence indicating voting and registration methods explain Oregon and Washington’s stickiness to Democrats in this year’s presidential race. Quite a few other progressive states that moved further toward Trump, most notably California and New Mexico, have voting and registration laws similar to Oregon’s.

So, if lenient voter registration and vote-by-mail rules helped Democrats in 2024, other factors were in play in other progressive states. Similarly, we know Oregon has illegally registered noncitizens to vote, some of those noncitizens have voted in past elections, and Oregon has required no proof of citizenship for the vast majority of registered voters in the state, and we don’t know how many of THOSE voters are not citizens.

However, other states, like California, have similar laws to Oregon’s, yet moved more strongly toward Trump.

Other factors

There may be other factors in play; every state has different races down ballot and different internal political dynamics. Trump’s Oregon shift may have been impeded by the fact that his campaign chose not to submit a voter pamphlet statement. That decision saved the Trump campaign $3,500 in a state he had no real chance of winning, but also meant every voter received a state-issued argument from Harris but not from Trump. That might have held back Trump’s numbers in Oregon, and may have impacted some close down-ballot races too, but Washington’s voter pamphlet statement included Trump and the shift there was even smaller than in Oregon.

There are also surely other potential factors that I’m leaving out.

So, for now, the best I can offer is that it’s really interesting that Oregon and Washington, along with a handful of other states like Colorado, stuck with Democrats more than other progressive states. I’ve described some potential factors for the phenomenon, but I have no confidence they offer a full explanation. Hopefully more granular data and analysis by people who can do math will shed more light on the subject in coming months.