With both Democratic and Republican presidential candidates cruising to comfortable victories in Washington’s primary, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump will officially face off against one another in November’s election.
While the field of candidates has dwindled in recent months, on Tuesday, both secured enough delegates to secure their party’s nomination. Across the state, 85.68% of voters backed Biden in the Democratic primary, while Trump earned 73.79% of the support in the Republican primary. In total, 559,996 voters cast their vote for Biden in the Democratic primary compared with 442,048 for Trump.
The results largely mirrored Lewis County, though Republican turnout vastly outpaced the Democrats. Biden earned 85.77% of the Democrats’ votes in Lewis County with 4,466, compared with the 84.01% Trump earned with 12,091 votes.
The primary comes after Nikki Haley, the final Republican challenging Trump for her party’s nomination, dropped out of the race. Haley earned 1,760 votes in Lewis County, which was 12.23% of the Republican vote.
While Biden did not face a significant challenge in the run for his party’s nomination, according to ABC News, non-party affiliated organizers have encouraged voters across the country to vote “noncommitted” as a protest against Biden’s stance on the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Across Washington, 48,619 people, or 7.44% of the 653,588 Democrats who voted, opted to vote as noncommitted. In Lewis County, 282 people, or 5.42% of the 5,207 Democratic voters, did so as noncommitted.
