When the dust finally settled on November 3, 2020, Washington didn't just reaffirm its deep-blue status—it basically hammered it home with a sledgehammer. You've probably seen the big maps where the state looks like a sea of red with a few tiny blue dots. That's the visual lie of geography. In reality, those tiny blue dots are where everyone actually lives.
Honestly, the Washington state 2020 election results tell a story of two different worlds living in the same zip code. It was a year of massive turnout, a governor making history, and some of the widest margins we've seen since the 1930s.
The Presidential Race: A Biden Blowout
Joe Biden didn't just win Washington; he crushed it. He walked away with 58% of the popular vote, leaving Donald Trump with 38.8%. That’s a gap of nearly 20 points. To put that in perspective, Biden pulled in 2,369,612 votes. That is the highest total any candidate has ever received in the history of the state. Ever.
Most people assume it’s just Seattle doing the heavy lifting. While King County was definitely the engine—Biden nabbed 75% of the vote there—it wasn't the whole story. Biden actually improved on Hillary Clinton's 2016 performance in places you might not expect. Take Whitman County, home to Washington State University. He won it by 10 points. That's the best a Democrat has done there since 1936. Even in Spokane County, which stayed red, the margin narrowed significantly.
Trump still dominated the rural stretches. In Columbia County, he scooped up over 70% of the vote. But the "geographic sort" is real. The urban and suburban areas have grown so much that even if you deleted every single vote from King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties, Biden still would have won the state by about 4,000 votes.
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Inslee’s Third Act and the Culp Defiance
The governor's race was, in many ways, more dramatic than the presidential one. Jay Inslee was running for a third term—something that hasn't happened in Washington since the 1970s. His opponent, Loren Culp, was the police chief of a tiny town called Republic.
Culp ran a "law and order" campaign that leaned heavily into resisting COVID-19 mandates. He held massive rallies while Inslee stayed mostly on Zoom. On paper, it looked like a clash of cultures. On election night, it wasn't even close.
- Jay Inslee (D): 56.6% (2,294,243 votes)
- Loren Culp (R): 43.1% (1,749,066 votes)
This was the largest margin of victory in a Washington governor’s race in twenty years. But the real story happened after the vote. Culp did something very few Washington candidates have done: he refused to concede. He filed a lawsuit against the Secretary of State, Kim Wyman—who, ironically, is a Republican—claiming "unsubstantiated" irregularities. The courts didn't buy it, and Culp eventually dropped the suit, but it signaled a shift in how contested elections are handled in the Pacific Northwest.
The Down-Ballot Surprises
If you think Washington is a monolithic liberal paradise, the Secretary of State race would like a word. Kim Wyman, the Republican incumbent, won her reelection with 53.6% of the vote.
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Think about that for a second.
In a year where Biden won the state by 20 points, a Republican managed to win a statewide office by over 7 points. This happens because Washington voters have a weird, independent streak when it comes to election integrity. Wyman was widely respected for her management of the state's mail-in system. People trusted her, so they crossed party lines.
Other key state results:
- Attorney General: Bob Ferguson cruised to a win with 56.4% against Matt Larkin.
- Lt. Governor: This was a "blue on blue" battle. Denny Heck beat fellow Democrat Marko Liias with 45.7% of the vote.
- State Auditor: Pat McCarthy kept her seat with 58%, defeating Chris Leyba.
The Mail-In Ballot Machine
Washington has been doing mail-in voting since long before it was a national controversy. In 2020, the system faced its ultimate test. The turnout was staggering: 84.1% of registered voters returned their ballots.
But it wasn't perfect. A study from the University of Washington’s Evans School found some "systemic variations" in how signatures were verified. Basically, if you were a younger voter or a person of color, your ballot was more likely to be rejected. For example, Hispanic and Asian voters had their ballots rejected at roughly double the rate of white voters. It’s usually because of signature mismatches—basically, your handwriting changes as you get older, or you just don't have a consistent signature yet.
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Why These Results Still Matter
The Washington state 2020 election results weren't just a one-off event. They solidified the "Blue Wall" of the West Coast while simultaneously highlighting a massive cultural rift. The gap between the tech-heavy I-5 corridor and the agricultural east is wider than ever.
We saw this play out in the 10th Congressional District, where Marilyn Strickland became the first Korean-American woman elected to Congress. At the same time, we saw the Republican stronghold in the 4th and 5th districts (Dan Newhouse and Cathy McMorris Rodgers) stay comfortably red.
If you're looking to understand Washington politics today, you have to look at 2020. It was the year the "suburban shift" became a permanent feature of the landscape. It was also the year that proved mail-in voting can handle massive volume, even if the signature verification process still needs some human tweaking to ensure everyone's vote actually counts.
Your Election Data Checklist
- Verify your registration: If you moved since 2020, your ballot won't find you. Head to VoteWA.gov to update your address.
- Track your ballot: Use the state's tracking system to ensure your signature was accepted. If it's rejected, you usually have a window to "cure" it by providing ID.
- Read the Voter Guide: Washington sends out a physical book for a reason. Down-ballot races like the Insurance Commissioner or Public Lands Commissioner affect your daily life more than you'd think.
- Look at Precinct Maps: If you really want to see how your neighbors voted, the Secretary of State website has precinct-level data that is way more granular than the county maps.
The 2020 cycle was a marathon, not a sprint. It changed how the state governs and how candidates campaign. Whether you're in Seattle or Spokane, those numbers from four years ago are still the foundation of every political move made in Olympia today.