On November 5, 2024, Washington voters elect Attorney General Bob Ferguson (b. 1965) as governor and re-elect U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (b. 1958) to a fifth term. All eight of the state's 10 members of Congress who are seeking re-election are successful. The two open House of Representatives seats are won by Republican former State Senator Michael Baumgartner and Democratic State Senator Emily Randall. In the presidential race, Vice President Kamala Harris (b. 1964) carries Washington with 57.2 percent of the vote, but loses the national vote to Donald Trump (b. 1946). Washington voters approve Initiative 2066, blocking recent regulations aimed at discouraging use of natural gas, while overwhelmingly rejecting three other initiatives seeking to undo recent legislation.
Unprecedented
The 2024 election, while covered by much of the media as just another presidential race, was unprecedented in many respects. Vice President Kamala Harris, chosen as the Democratic nominee after President Joe Biden (b. 1942) withdrew from the race, was the first Asian American – and only the second woman, after Hillary Clinton (b. 1947), and second African American, after Barack Obama (b. 1961) – to run for president as a major-party candidate.
The status of her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, was even more unprecedented, in a very different way. Although he had previously served as president, winning the 2016 election in the electoral college despite losing the popular vote to Clinton by a substantial margin, by the time of the 2024 election he had been convicted of 34 felony charges and was facing multiple additional criminal charges. In May 2024 a jury in New York State court convicted him of 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush-money payments made to actor Stormy Daniels during the 2016 campaign to keep her from publicizing claims of a sexual encounter with Trump. Sentencing in the case was delayed until after the election, but it took place on January 10, 2025, after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Trump's request to block it. Although Trump received an unconditional discharge that did not impose jail or other punishment, it made him the only convicted felon to hold the office of president when he was sworn in 10 days later.
During the campaign Trump was also facing three other criminal cases. Two were federal prosecutions brought by special counsel Jack Smith, one charging election interference for attempting to subvert the 2020 election that he lost, and the other charging illegal hoarding of classified documents after leaving the White House in 2021. Smith dismissed the charges following the election based on the principle that sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted while in office. A state criminal case in Georgia charging election interference was also pending during the campaign but unlikely to proceed afterward. In addition to the criminal convictions, juries in two civil cases in New York, in 2023 and 2024, found that Trump had sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll during an encounter in 1996 and awarded her a total of $88.3 million in damages for the abuse and for Trump defaming her by denying it.
Nonetheless Trump prevailed, winning 49.7 percent of the popular vote to Harris's 48.2 percent, and 312 electoral votes to her 226. It was one of the closest elections in U.S. history. With 2 percent of the vote going to third-party candidates, Trump did not win a majority of the vote cast, and his 1.5 percent margin of victory was smaller than in all but four of the 32 elections since 1900.
As in the presidential race, the voting for Congress was close with Republicans prevailing narrowly. They flipped four Senate seats to retake control of the Senate with 53 seats to 47 for the Democrats (including two independents who caucus with the Democrats), but it was the Democrats, who won senate races in most of the larger states, who received the most votes cast in Senate races, 55.9 million to 54.4 million for the Republicans. Democrats also gained two seats in the House of Representatives, but Republicans retained control of the House by the margin of 220 seats to 215.
Not So Close
The results in Washington were a direct contrast to the narrow Republican victories nationally – Democrats won most of the races, generally by large margins. Kamala Harris carried the state with 57.2 percent of the vote. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell defeated Republican challenger Dr. Raul Garcia by a slightly larger margin, garnering 59 percent of the vote to win her fifth term in the Senate.
Two of Washington's 10 seats in the House of Representatives were open, as Republican Cathy McMorris Rodgers (b. 1969), in the Fifth District in Eastern Washington, and Democrat Derek Kilmer (b. 1974), in the Sixth on the Olympic Peninsula, chose not to run for re-election. Republican former State Senator Michael Baumgartner, who had unsuccessfully challenged Cantwell in the 2012 Senate race, easily defeated Democrat Carmela Conroy in the heavily Republican Fifth District. In the Sixth, Democratic State Senator Emily Randall of Bremerton defeated Republican State Senator Drew MacEwen of Union.
All eight House incumbents won their races: Democrats Suzan DelBene (b. 1962) in the First District, Rick Larsen (b. 1965) in the Second, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (b. 1988) in the Third, Pramila Jayapal (b. 1965) in the Seventh, Kim Schrier (b. 1968) in the Eighth, Adam Smith (b. 1965) in the Ninth, and Marilyn Strickland (b. 1962) in the Tenth, and Republican Dan Newhouse (b. 1955) in the Fourth. Most won by large margins – six challengers trailed by at least 8 percent, many by much more. The two closer races, in the Third and Fourth districts, illustrated Trump's lack of coattails in Washington, even in strongly Republican districts. Trump carried both the Third District in Southwest Washington and the Fourth District in Central Washington but the candidates he supported lost both those House races.
In the Third, Gluesenkamp Perez again faced Republican Joe Kent, whom she barely defeated when she won the seat two years earlier, and beat him by a slightly larger margin. In the Fourth, a longtime Republican stronghold, Newhouse faced a challenge from fellow Republican Jerrod Sessler, who was strongly backed by Trump. Newhouse was one of only 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for his part in the January 6, 2021, insurrection when supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, and Trump had since repeatedly denounced him and sought to prevent his return to Congress. As he had in 2022, Newhouse prevailed, winning 52 percent of the vote to Sessler's 47 percent.
State Offices
The race to succeed three-term Democratic Governor Jay Inslee (b. 1951), who did not run for re-election, featured two political veterans: Democrat Bob Ferguson, the three-term state attorney general who had brought many lawsuits challenging the policies of the first Trump administration, and Republican Dave Reichert (b. 1950), a former King County Sheriff and member of Congress who had represented the Eighth District for seven terms. Ferguson won with 55.5 percent of the vote to Reichert's 44.2 percent.
Democrats also won all the other partisan statewide offices. Nick Brown (b. 1977), a former U.S. Attorney for Western Washington who had earlier served as general counsel to Governor Inslee, defeated Pete Serrano, the Republican mayor of Pasco, in the race to succeed Ferguson. With the victory, Brown became Washington's first African American Attorney General. Two other offices were also open -- Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz had run for Congress in the Sixth District, but lost in the primary, and Mike Kreidler, who had been Insurance Commissioner since 2001, also did not seek re-election. Democratic King County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove was elected Commissioner of Public Lands, defeating Republican former U.S. Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler (b. 1978), who represented the Third District for five terms before stepping down in 2022. Two state senators, Democrat Patty Kuderer of Bellevue and Republican Phil Fortunato of Auburn, sought the Insurance Commissioner position, with Kuderer prevailing.
In the remaining races, Lieutenant Governor Denny Heck, Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, State Treasurer Mike Pellicciotti (b. 1978), and Auditor Pat McCarthy all defeated Republican challengers. Incumbent Chris Reykdal defeated David Olson in the nonpartisan race for Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Initiatives and Legislature
Voters considered four statewide initiative measures targeting recent legislation supported by the Inslee administration and enacted by the Democratic-controlled state legislature. One was approved and three were overwhelmingly defeated. Initiative 2066 sought to mandate that utilities provide access to natural gas and blocked regulations designed to help reduce pollution and combat climate change by discouraging use of natural gas, in part by repealing portions of a law that had aimed to help Puget Sound Energy, Washington's largest utility, transition away from natural gas. The measure was backed by the Building Industry Association of Washington and the Washington Hospitality Association and received substantial funding from Let's Go Washington, a political action committee financed by hedge-fund manager Brian Heywood. It passed with 51.7 percent in favor and 48.3 percent opposed.
Three other measures sponsored by Heywood and Let's Go Washington were soundly rejected. Initiative 2117 would have ended the state's carbon market, which requires major polluters to buy allowances for their emissions and had raised more than $2 billion for green-energy programs in its first year. The initiative got only 38 percent of the vote, with 62 percent opposed. Even more voters, 64 percent, rejected Initiative 2109, which would have repealed Washington's capital-gains tax, enacted in 2021, which imposes a 7 percent tax on profits of $262,000 or more from the sale of intangible assets like stocks. And Initiative 2124, which would have made Washington's first-in-the-nation mandatory long-term-care insurance program optional, failed with 55.4 percent opposed and 44.5 in favor.
In legislative races, Democrats maintained their control of both houses of the state legislature. The 2025 legislature session opened with 30 Democrats and 19 Republicans in the Senate. Fifty-nine members of the House were Democratic and 39 were Republican.
