Prop 14: Washington State

I'm going to do a more complete analysis of Prop. 14 implications, which I've hit on here and here. I'll do an in depth analysis in the next week in several parts.

Washington has had a top 2 primary in 2008 and 2010. While that's not a lot of data to go on, there are some learnings.

If you total the voting percentages for Republicans and right leaning third parties (Libertarian, Constitution) you end up with a remarkably close approximation for the general election. For a couple of races it's 0.1% or 0.2% off. There were a few instances where it was off.

In the 2008 8th district primary Democrats beat Republicans 49.0%-48.5%, but the Republican got 52.8%-47.2% in the general. It was reversed two years later. In 2010 Republicans beat Democrats in the primary 58%-40%, but only squeaked by in the general election 52%-48%. There's only been one election where the party winning the general didn't win the primary.

Conclusions:
1. The primary election totals are a strong indicator of what the general election will look like.
2. Incumbents have nothing to worry about. All except one finished first and that one still beat the third place finisher by 36 points.
3. Voters will vote for the incumbent even if there's no chance he or she won't finish top two.
4. Since the voting percentages were similar in both the primary and general election. voters don't cross over to pick the incumbent's opponent.