Maria Cantwell, the incumbent Democratic U.S. senator from Washington, is leagues ahead of her nearest opponent, Republican Raul Garcia, and on track to win her fifth term in the Senate by a wide margin, according to a new statewide poll.
The WA Poll has Cantwell leading Garcia by 58% to 37% among likely primary voters. Just 5% of respondents said they were undecided.
Though 11 candidates are in the Senate primary race, only one poll respondent chose someone other than Cantwell or Garcia, saying they'd vote for "whoever the Libertarian candidate is."
The top two candidates in the Aug. 6 primary will face off in the November general election.
Nearly every demographic category favored Cantwell, except four: people who identify as Hispanic, rural voters, and people with only a high school education or who earn less than $40,000 a year.
Besides those, Cantwell is the odds-on favorite no matter how you slice the pie: by age, gender, urban or suburban, owners and renters, people on either side of the Cascades, and parents or childless.
Aside from her first Senate race in 2000, which she won by less than 0.1% of the vote, Cantwell is used to lopsided elections. In her three bids for reelection, she won by wide margins, most recently in 2018 with 58.3% of the vote — almost identical to the margin in the new WA Poll. If she wins this year and serves her full term, she will have served a full 30 years in the Senate.
Garcia, an emergency room doctor in Yakima who ran for governor in 2020 before losing in the primary, offers Republicans a longshot candidacy in a year when control of the Senate is likely to come down to one or two seats.
Garcia's views don't necessarily align with his party. In a recent interview with The Seattle Times, he refused to say his pick for president, didn't question the 2020 election results and said he would vote to reestablish abortion rights as they existed under Roe v. Wade.
Garcia is in Republican territory on other issues, including his desire to audit every federal department to identify budget cuts and his support of gun ownership, including that of high-powered semi-automatic weapons.
Cantwell has much stronger ties to her party. She leads the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, and sits on the Senate's committees on energy and natural resources, finance, Indian affairs, and small business and entrepreneurship.
In her fifth term, Cantwell said she'll help cement President Joe Biden's marquee legislation: the infrastructure law, the climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS Act to spur domestic semiconductor work.
The poll results aren't surprising. Cantwell has the advantages of being a longtime incumbent in a reliably Democratic state who has a significant financial edge.
Still, the poll found divisions along familiar lines. Cantwell was supported by 89% of people affiliated with the Democratic Party. Garcia got 88% of Republican support.
Respondents who said their top issues this election were abortion, climate change or guns supported Cantwell, with 85%, 94% and 74%, respectively. If border security was their top concern, Garcia was their choice, with 90%.
Likely voters focused on other issues were more evenly split. Those with cost-of-living concerns supported Garcia over Cantwell, 52% to 42%. Fighting crime favored Cantwell, who got 46% to Garcia's 42%. People thinking about homelessness were more in Garcia's favor; he got 57% to Cantwell's 41%.
Lastly, voters focused on protecting democracy said they supported Cantwell over Garcia, 83% to 14%.
While the poll showed Cantwell leading among most of the many different types of voters, she trails Garcia in some key groups.
People who identify as Hispanic said they'd vote for Garcia over Cantwell, 52% to 44%. Rural voters were on Garcia's side, 58% to 35%. Folks who only have a high school education said they'd vote for Garcia over Cantwell, 62% to 32%. And 49% of those earning below $40,000 a year said Garcia had their support, compared with Cantwell's 42%.
The WA Poll is sponsored by The Seattle Times, KING 5 and the University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public. The questions about the Senate race included responses from 564 likely primary voters contacted by SurveyUSA between July 10 and 13, and have a credibility interval of plus or minus 5.1 percentage points.
More poll results will be released in the coming days on subjects including the initiatives on Washington's November ballot, abortion, other top issues for voters and the presidential election.
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