Wash. Presidential Primary Packs Less Punch, Ballots Out Tomorrow
With the back-to-back news that Ted Cruz and John Kasich were dropping out of the Republican presidential contest, Washington state’s primary later this month packs less of a punch. While state Republicans will still use the May 24 election to allocate the state’s 44 delegates, with no other candidates left in the race after Kasich’s announcement yesterday that he is ending his campaign, Donald Trump is the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee.
The state had been preparing for visits from all three candidates in the coming days, but it is unclear whether even Trump would still visit the state Saturday. Washington has both a presidential primary and a caucus system, but Democrats ignore the primary and use only the caucus system to allocate 101 delegates to candidates at the national convention, said Chelan County Auditor Skip Moore. Bernie Sanders overwhelmingly won the state’s Democratic caucuses March 26. But at this point the chance of a Sanders nomination is growing ever slimmer.
Voters should start to see their ballots arriving in the mail over the next few days. There is still time to register to vote, which you can do at the County Auditor’s website.