Washington State

YouGov
October 16, 2012, 7:00 PM GMT+0

Democratic President Barack Obama holds a solid, 17-point lead over Republican challenger Mitt Romney in Washington State, 56% Obama to 39% Romney, in a YouGov poll of 748 likely voters statewide (recontacted from an initial September poll).

In Washington State (Oct 4-11):

Washingtonians are extremely polarized - 95% of Democrats are voting for Obama, while 93% of Republicans are supporting Romney.

Independents break toward Romney, 48%-39%.

Women in the Evergreen State strongly favor Obama 61%-35%, while among men Obama is more narrowly ahead (51%-42%).

Obama enjoys a huge lead over Romney in King County (66%-28%), as well as solid leads over Romney in the Southwest and Puget Sound regions of the state (52%-36% and 54%-42%, respectively). Romney leads Obama in Eastern Washington (51%-45%).

The oldest voters age 65+ favor Romney (52%-45%), while the youngest under age 30 overwhelmingly favor Obama (63%-29%).

Net Change in Voter Intention (Likely Voters)
TotalIndependents

Sept 7-14

Oct 4-11

Sept 7-14

Oct 4-11

Barack Obama

53%

56%

39%

39%

Mitt Romney

39%

39%

44%

48%

In this year’s U.S. Senate race in Washington, incumbent Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell holds a decisive advantage over GOP challenger Michael Baumgartner, leading 55%-36%.

In the governor’s race, Democratic Congressman Jay Inslee now enjoys a 10-point lead over Attorney General Rob McKenna. The race has moved in Inslee’s direction since September, when Inslee was leading McKenna by only 4 points among likely voters.

Likely voters in Washington are more mostly supporting Democratic congressional candidates, with 51% intending to vote for the Democratic candidate for the House in their district, and 37% intending to vote for the Republican candidates.

The poll was conducted online October 4-11, 2012.

Sampling method: Respondents were initially selected on September 7-14 from YouGov’s panel using sample matching. A random sample (stratified by age, gender, race, education, and region) was selected from the 2005–2007 American Community Study. Voter registration, turnout, religion, news interest, minor party identification, and non-placement on an ideology scale, were imputed from the 2008 Current Population Survey Registration and Voting supplement and the Pew Religion in American Life Survey. Matching respondents were selected from the YouGov panel, an opt-in Internet panel.

Respondents were recontacted on October 4-11 for the second wave of the YouGov poll. The percentage of likely voters who were successfully recontacted was 85.2%.

Weighting: The sample was weighted using propensity scores based on age, gender, race, education, news interest, voter registration, and non-placement on an ideology scale.

Number of respondents: 748 likely voters. Margin of error ± 4.3% (adjusted for weighting).

Click here for September 7-14 results (registered voters).

Click here for October 4-11 results (likely voters).