Democratic and Republican voters in Washington state are split on more than just candidates, polls show

Voters on opposing sides of the political divide in Washington state's upcoming elections are split not just on candidates but on what they think are the most important public issues, writes Danny Westneat, a columnist for The Seattle Times. In a recent poll of 782 Washingtonians conducted by Emerson College, crime was a top issue for Republican voters while just four Democrats said they were focused on crime. A poll conducted by Seattle pollster Stuart Elway showed that environment and climate change are a top-five issue for Democrats while no Republicans in the survey cited it. “It’s as if there’s two different elections going on,” Elway told Westneat.

The divide may be more acute in Washington where the urban-rural divide is accentuated by geography — the Cascade Mountains runs north-south through the western end of the state, separating the more populated coast from the largely rural eastern portions. 

Elway's poll showed that Republicans and Democrats even measured their personal lives differently from one another. Nearly 70% of Republicans told Elway that they were doing worse financially this year than last, while 75% of Democrats said they were doing just as well or better. "There’s very little chance that that finding can actually be true,” Elway said. “People are putting themselves into tribal camps with their answers, even on questions that aren’t about issues or the state of the world."

Westneat writes that this divide could have a real impact on public issues. "Crime is clearly a major issue — last week, the Seattle police chief said the city has hit a 25-year high in violent crime. Tacoma and some suburban cities are also suffering unusually high crime rates," Westneat writes. 

"But the extreme partisanship has gotten to the point that if Republicans are going to be saying crime is a huge problem, then the Democrats are going to say it’s not. Even if it is," Elway said.