I was asked by a supporter, Thomas R. from the west side of the state, whether Nate Powell had a chance to win the primary for the 5th Congressional District. Below is my edited response. It is meant to be objective and not reflect whom I may or may not vote for. Also, Eastern Washington Voters has not made an endorsement and will be happy to support who ever advances to the general election against Baumgartner.
I doubt that Nate Powell can win and advance to the general election. However, primaries with three or more candidates are very hard to predict. An eleven-way race is even harder, and that is the number of Democrats and independents running along with the sole Republican Michael Baumgartner.
There are lots of different ways to look at this question. I think a qualitative analysis of voting blocs, followed by some basic math, is the best approach. A candidate’s voting bloc is the group of voters who will naturally tend to vote for that candidate, and those blocs often overlap with other candidates’ voting blocs. Because the size of each candidate’s voting bloc is somewhat unknown, the extent to which voting blocs overlap is uncertain, and candidates within a voting bloc divide the vote in unpredictable ways, there is no easy answer.
Here is the short answer. Usually, the bloc of voters willing to vote for a largely unknown independent is not large enough to garner enough votes to finish with the second-highest vote total. However, there are seven Democrats running who will split the loyal Democratic vote, giving an independent such as Powell more of a chance than usual.
According to the Inlander, there are seven Democrats running, along with independent Nate Powell and four other independents.
It is generally true that primaries are dominated by voters who are party insiders and loyalists. That is usually the largest voting bloc, and those voters are likely to favor party insider Carmela Conroy, a former county party chair. However, because Conroy ran before and lost by a sizable (though not embarrassing) margin, there is likely another sizable voting bloc made up of non-insider Democrats and those frustrated by Conroy’s loss in 2024. If there were only one Democrat vying for this voting bloc, that candidate might have a chance against Conroy and her supporters. However, there are seven Democratic candidates, led by David Womack, Bajun Mavalwalla, and perhaps Kevin Fagan. Each of them will take votes away from the others, making it difficult for any one of them to win more votes than Conroy.
That leaves Nate Powell, who is competing for support among voters who are most willing to cast a ballot for an independent. Powell’s main problem is the small size of that voting bloc. Sure, there are quite a few voters who are relatively willing to vote for an independent, but they generally sit out the primaries. His other problem is that there are four other independents on the primary ballot, including Ann Marie Danimus.
What are my predictions? Republican Michael Baumgartner will win about 45% of the vote. The Democratic candidates will split the Democratic vote, which will likely keep any one of them from reaching 30%. However, I would wager 25 cents that Conroy will receive around 20% of the total primary vote, leaving another 25% to be divided among the other Democratic candidates. The independent voting bloc will account for about 10% of the vote, and I would wager a whole 50 cents that Powell will win about half of that, or roughly 5% of the total vote.
Of course, how much money the candidates raise also matters. So do their policy platforms, their style and character, and the quality of their campaigns. However, those factors probably won’t matter as much as many people think.