A Good Election for Progressives in Washington State

Three of the four initiatives on the Washington ballot this year were essentially a broad referendum on the political legacy of outgoing Gov. Jay Inslee and the increasingly progressive Legislatures of the past few years.

Voters rejected all three initiatives on Tuesday, affirming that legacy and setting the table for a more progressive agenda in Olympia in the future, even as the nation re-embraced Donald Trump as president.

Initiative 2109, which would have repealed the capital gains tax, failed 37-63 percent. Initiative 2117, which would have axed the cap-and-trade system for large carbon emitters imposed by the Climate Commitment Act, went down 38-62 percent. Initiative 2124, which would have weakened and perhaps gutted the state’s long-term care insurance system by making the payroll tax that pays for it optional for more people, is losing 44.5-55.5 percent.



All three of those initiatives were essentially tax cuts for somebody. So how did they get such a thorough ass-kicking? Well for starters, opponents of the measures spent more than $35 million against them. The “yes” campaign for the initiatives raised just $9 million, most of which was spent in 2023 to get the measures on the ballot.

https://www.postalley.org/2024/11/06/a-good-election-for-progressives-in-washington-state/