THE ELWAY POLL

19 APR 16

19 APRIL 2016

Inslee Widens Lead Over Bryant in Race for Governor

Governor Jay Inslee widened his lead to double digits over Republican challenger Bill Bryant in the recent Elway Poll. Inslee led 48-36% in this survey of 503 voters completed over the weekend. He led 3930% in the January poll.
The proportion of undecided voters decreased by half, with Inslee picking up 3 undecided voters
for every 2 who went to Bryant.
State School Superintendent Randy Dorn has been exploring an Independent run for Governor.
Although Dorn is a former Democratic of ice holder, his potential candidacy appears to threaten Bryant
more than Inslee. With Dorn in this survey, Bryants support dropped 10 points (36-26%), while
Inslees sank 7 points (48%-41%). Undecided went up 9 points to 25%. Dorn himself picked up 7%.
Dorn seems unlikely to enter the race at this point, but these indings are illustrative of a race that is
still luid and highly partisan. The luidity is based on two indings, primarily:
Inslee has not crested 50%, making him seem vulnerable.
Although the percentage of undecided voters was down in the 2-man race since January, it bounced
back up again when a third candidate was mentioned. 31% of Independents were undecided in the 2way race, but 42% were undecided in the 3-way, with just 12% inclined to support the Independent
Dorn. This suggests a signi icant number of voters have not settled on a candidate.
Neither candidate has impressive support outside his party.
Inslee had the support of 88% of Democrats surveyed in the 2-way race and 77% in the 3-way race,
indicating some softness in his party support.
Similarly, Bryant had 88% support from Republicans in the 2-way race and 71% in the 3-way race.
Adding a third alternative reduced both Inslees and
RACE FOR GOVERNOR
Bryants support to near the bedrock party vote.
INSLEE
UNDEC
BRYANT
Any campaign with an incumbent is largely about that
incumbent. This one certainly appears to it that mold:
APR
Inslee appears to have a solid core of support, somewhere in the 40sjust above the percentage of Democrats in the surveycall it an incumbent premium.
JAN
Bryants support among Independents dropped from
31% to 16% when the third candidate was included,
indicating that a signi icant portion of his support relies on him being the only alternative to Inslee.
Bryant is bene itting from being the alternative to
INSLEE
3-CANDIDATE RACE
Inslee, but has yet to build support for his own candiBRYANT
dacy much beyond Republican voters. His 26% in the
UNDEC
48
3-way race is almost exactly the proportion of selfDORN
41
identi ied Republicans in this survey.
36
Given that Democrats (39%) outnumbered Republicans (27%) and Independents (34%) in this poll, the
26 25
advantage goes to the Democrat Inslee. Bryant would
16
need to win all the Republicans and 70% of the Independents to be leading in this race.
7

48

39

THE ELWAY POLL 2016. Excerpts may be quoted with attribution.

2 CANDIDATES

16

36

31

30

3 CANDIDATES

THE ELWAY POLL

Sample Profile
503 registered voters, selected at random from registered voter lists in Washington
state, were interviewed April 14-17 by live, professional interviewers. 20% of the interviews were conducted on cell phones. The margin of sampling error is 4.5% at the 95%
level of confidence. This means, in theory, had this same survey been conducted 100
times, the results would be within 4.5% of the results reported here at least 95 times.

REGION
King County ........................................ 30%
Pierce + Kitsap.................................... 15%
North Sound (Snohomish to Whatcom) ........ 17%
Western Washington (Clallam to Clark) .... 17%
Eastern Washington ........................... 20%
GENDER
Male .................................................... 48%
Female ................................................ 52%
AGE
18-35 ..................................................... 8%
36-50 ................................................... 20%
51-64 ................................................... 40%
65+ ...................................................... 29%
PARTY IDENTIFICATION
Democrat ............................................ 39%
Republican ......................................... 27%
Independent ........................................ 34%
VOTE HISTORY
0-2 Votes in Last 4 Elections .............. 46%
3 Votes in Last 4 Elections ................. 19%
4 Votes in Last 4 Elections ................. 35%
EDUCATION
High School......................................... 18%
Some College ..................................... 28%
College Graduate ................................ 35%
Post Graduate ..................................... 17%
HOUSEHOLD INCOME
<$50,000 ............................................. 23%
$50 - 74,000 ........................................ 16%
$75 - 99,000 ........................................ 15%
$100,000+ ........................................... 24%
No Answer .......................................... 21%

The Elway Poll

The Elway Poll is an independent, non-partisan analysis of public
opinion in Washington and the Northwest.

PROPRIETARY QUESTIONS:

Each quarter, space is reserved in

the questionnaire to allow for proprietary questions. The fee for
proprietary questions is $1000 per question. You will receive
the results of your question(s) with full crosstabulations within
three days after the interviews are completed.

19 APR 16

Vance Gains Some Ground, but

Murray Hits 50% in Senate Race
Republican challenger Chris Vance gained some
ground on Democrat US Senator Patty Murray, but
Murray was at 50% in this survey of Washington
voters, so a dif icult challenge is becoming more
dif icult.

US SENATE
RACE

MURRAY
APR

OCT

UNDEC

50
44

VANCE

18
33

32
23

The race is beginning to harden along party lines:

Murray had the support of 91% of the Democrats,
up from 84% in October.
Vance had support from 79% of Republicans, up
from 58%.
Independents split 41-28% for Murray vs. 34-19%
last October.
Murray, irst elected in the Year of the Woman (1992), will likely be running this year with a
woman at the top of the Democratic ticket. It wont
hurt: she led Vance by 2:1 among women voters in
this survey (56-28%).
Murrays lead is virtually the same as her lead at
this point in her race 6 years ago against Dino
Rossi (51-34%). Murray went on to win that race
with a 52-48% margin.

MURRAY VS. VANCE

MURRAY (50% OVERALL) WAS STRONGEST AMONG:

Democrats (91%);
Seale voters (73%);
Voters under age 35 (64%);
Women (56%);
College graduates (54%);
Voters with annual incomes over $75,000 (53%).

VANCE (32% OVERALL) WAS STRONGEST AMONG:

Republicans (79%);
Eastern Washington voters (42%);
Voters with incomes under $50-75,000 (39%);
Voters with a high school educaon (37%)
and graduate degrees (39%);
Voters over age 65 (37%).

The Elway Poll

Seattle, WA
206/264-1500 FAX: 264-0301
epoll@elwayresearch.com