Washington won't be among early primary states ... that's OK, Democratic leaders say
Washington will not be one of the early states to hold a Democratic presidential primary next year. State party leaders aren’t taking the news too badly.
Last year, Washington’s Democratic Party launched a bid under then-chair Tina Podlodowski to join the primary reshuffle. Podlodowski said she believed Washington stood a strong chance of getting one of the few available early primary slots because of its diverse population, proportion of Indigenous tribes, and high union membership rates.
But Washington faced a lot of competition. A total of 17 states vied for just a handful of early voting slots. There was only one space open for a Western state. Washington, Nevada, and Colorado wanted the nod. Nevada got it.
State Democratic leaders took a positive view of the situation. In a statement Monday, current party chair Shasti Conrad said that Washington could claim some credit for helping steer early primaries away from longtime leaders Iowa and New Hampshire, to states whose demographics better reflect the current Democratic base.
Conrad also said Washington would be a good candidate for an early slot in 2028, if the Democratic Party wants to shuffle its calendar again. That is possible. President Biden and some national party leaders have suggested rotating the early primaries among multiple states over time.
