2026 Election: Top issues driving WA voters to the polls

Well, from cost of living battles to contentious congressional seats, ballots are out. Election day just eight days away now, believe it or not. We wanted to bring in Patrick Shaffer, political science professor at Seattle University, to talk about what is driving voters to the polls. Thanks so much for being here this morning. Washington voters dealing with a lot of specific regional pressures here. We've got gas prices usually higher than the rest of the country, property taxes, housing. Does our state's affordability debate, does it match what's going on? nationally? Or is it even more important here in this region? Yeah, I would say it reflects the national balance. If we look across the gamut of polls that we have, you can boil down the top issues in the country too. The economy, whether that's inflation or gas prices or what have you, housing is another big way. And the other big issue is Donald Trump. Yeah. Well, now voting by mail, of course, could not be easier in our state. It's one of the things we've done for years now. We get about 80% in a presidential election. But the question is, will people be driven to vote this year? Even as easy as it is, it usually drops, right, in a midterm election. What do you think is going to happen here? Yeah, well, turnout is usually a little bit lower in primaries and in general and in midterms compared to presidential elections. But we are trending a little ahead of where we were in 2022. I don't know that we'll quite reach presidential levels, but I think we'll have a higher than average turnout for this 2022 cycle. Okay there of course is a divide with the Cascades here it's almost like the mountains divide us sometimes here but this year we are looking closely we got a competitive congressional race in southwest Washington's third district and then central Washington's fourth as well so are these issues moving voters there in Clark County, Yakima Valley is it reflected here where we are as well? Well the third congressional district I think is the most competitive district in Washington and one of the most competitive districts in the U.S. So seeing that one again being a tight race, particularly when you have a really established Republican nominee this time, like the Senate Minority Leader, I think that one is not surprising that it could be tight. The fourth congressional district, however, with that open seat now that Newman is retiring, if Democrats are really competitive in that, that is a really bad signal for Republicans because that's estimated to be about a plus 10 Republican district. So Democrats would have to be performing 10 points better than they usually do to really be, we would expect them to be viable in that race. And if it's like that, you're looking at a Republican wipeout. By the way, I was going to ask you, do you have any predictions for what could happen here? Are we going to see the House turn? Could the Senate turn to the Democrats as well? The House, I think, has been expected to turn for a while. Well, that's sort of the thermostatic back and forth behavior we've seen the bill embrace with. With 13 days to go until the election, US House Speaker Mike Johnson. Pretty much a foregone conclusion, even though Republicans were able to close the gap a little bit with some of their gerrymandering maneuvers earlier this year. The Senate is the real surprise, and the Senate, I would still say, is a toss up. Democrats are running in, having to win in seats that are Republican favored, like in Alaska like in Texas but the fact that we see Democrats up or even in these races suggest that it could be a place where we see Democrats flip it's gonna be interesting to watch let's talk about the Washington State initiatives getting a lot of talking points recently about these we have the millionaire's tax high school sports rules and then the parents bill of rights do you feel like that is going to get people out and vote as well this year is that picking up momentum, these initiatives? I think that they will get people out as well. You've seen political parties use hot button issues before to help gin up turnout. And I think parents Bill of rights, trans athletes, and particularly the millionaire's tax are things that a lot of Washingtonians feel strongly about. But different Washingtonians will feel strong about different ones. So I think that's going to contribute to the higher turnout, both among Democrats and Republicans. Any races you're watching closely here, whether it's locally or nationally on election night uh one of the local ones i'm watching i'm really interested in the special district race here in district five in seattle uh the council is still pretty evenly divided in which way the the fifth district voters go there i think will do a lot to tell us what the next two the next year or two will look like here in seattle okay patrick Shatner great to have you here as always thanks for being with us all right