Presidential choices narrow in upcoming Washington state primary

The fallout from Super Tuesday is forcing Washington state Democrats who haven't yet voted to rethink their choices just days ahead of the March 10 presidential primary.

Democrat Cynthia Setel attended a meeting for Mike Bloomberg supporters at The Riveter on Capitol Hill as recently as Friday night. Setel said that while she respects Bloomberg, she is overjoyed to see Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar all endorse Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee.

“The Democrats, we’ve been so good historically at eating our own, and at infighting and purity tests and so forth,” Setel said. “That moment, of the Democratic party coming together – it’s just how it should be,” she said.

Setel said she is prepared to jump in as a volunteer or donor to Biden now, instead of Bloomberg. She has made calls and donated to support other Democrats in the past. Setel said she was truly enthused about Bloomberg as a candidate, but she thinks the unity around Biden bodes well for her main goal: preventing a second term for President Trump.

“The party has come together so beautifully that I think we don’t need that ‘Hail Mary’ anymore,” Setel said, “and to me…I just feel joy.”

The elimination of Biden’s competitors among moderate Democrats occurred with astonishing speed that scrambled local campaign calendars.

The Buttigieg campaign opened an office in Seattle just this past Saturday; then he dropped out on Sunday.

Bloomberg’s campaign staff said Friday they expected him to visit Seattle before the Washington state primary. Then he suspended his campaign after disappointing results in the Super Tuesday primaries.

Amanda Finney, the national deputy women’s outreach director for the campaign, said Friday that his withdrawal still contains silver linings for local Democrats. She noted that many of the campaign’s seven offices in Washington state will remain open through November.

“So whether Mike is the candidate or not, these offices will just turn into whoever the nominee is, or whoever’s blue up and down the ballot,” Finney said. And Finney added that people hired by the campaign would stay on their jobs, possibly in other battleground states.

Erin Schultz, a political consultant with Northwest Passage Consulting in Seattle, said this commitment allowed the Bloomberg campaign to quickly build a strong organization.

“They did an impressive job of scooping up Washington state staff people,” Schultz said. “And my understanding is organizers were hired with the understanding that if it didn’t work out for Bloomberg, that they would then be deployed to other states or to Washington State to support whoever the Democratic nominee is.”