(SEATTLE) As the final hearing regarding the events of January 6th, 2021 gets underway at about 10 this morning, there’s a good chance most people in the Northwest will be paying attention.
WalletHub just named Washington the 4th most politically-engaged state in the country. our neighbor Oregon comes in at number 5. More populated states like California and New York rank 7th and 9th, respectively.
The survey is based on several factors, including voter turnout in 2020 (a Washington state record of 84% in the November General Election), the percentage of registered voters, and the total of political contributions.
The high turnout in 2020 is interesting to spotlight, because in the off- presidential years since, voter turnout has returned to the doldrums one would expect in an off-year primary. It’s why people like Kendall Hodson at King County Elections told KOMO-4 we really should move our Primary.
“August is a tough time of year for a Primary, we’ve been saying that now for a little while,” Hodson says. “I think we’re definitely going to be interested in revisiting that conversation in Olympia. Washington might want to move its Primary to May or June, consistent with other Primaries in the region.”
And while overall engagement numbers are high for Washington, when you break the numbers down into age groups, it appears that the younger we are, the less engaged politically we are. Both candidates running for Secretary of State…Julie Anderson and Steve Hobbs…say they plan to target these younger voters by making sure messaging reaches schools, offering more outreach on the issues, and maybe even developing a gaming app to get younger people involved in the process before they ever become eligible to vote.
