Editing Washington County, Oregon (section)

==Politics==
Like all of the [[Yankee]]-influenced Willamette Valley and Oregon Coast, Washington County was in its pre-[[Great Depression in the United States|Depression]] history strongly Republican. After Oregon achieved statehood in 1859, Washington County voted for the Republican presidential nominee in every presidential election from 1860 to 1928, except in the 1912 presidential election when the county supported Progressive Party candidate and former Republican president [[Theodore Roosevelt]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Menendez |first=Albert J. |title=The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004 |publisher=McFarland |year=2005 |isbn=0786422173 |pages=284–286}}</ref> In 1932, [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] became the first-ever Democrat to win the Washington County vote, and he repeated this success in 1936 and 1940. Between 1944 and 1988, Washington County was never won by a Democrat except in [[Lyndon B. Johnson]]'s landslide victory in 1964. As recently as 1976, Washington County was the second-most Republican county in the state behind [[Malheur County, Oregon|Malheur County]] in southeast Oregon.<ref>{{Cite web |last=David Leip |title=1976 Presidential General Election Data Graphs – Oregon by County |url=http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/datagraph.php?year=1976&fips=41&f=1&off=0&elect=0 |access-date=July 8, 2013 |website=uselectionatlas.org}}</ref> [[Gerald Ford]]'s 17,529-vote margin of victory in the county was decisive in narrowly carrying Oregon during that year's presidential election; it was almost 10 times Ford's statewide margin of 1,713 votes.

Since the 1990s, the increasing drift of the Republican Party nationally towards the South and evangelicalism, along with urbanization, has resulted in Washington County shifting towards the Democratic Party. No Republican presidential candidate has carried Washington County since [[George H. W. Bush]] did so in 1988. In 2004, [[John Kerry]] became the first Democrat to win a majority of the county's vote since LBJ. The county swung hard to [[Barack Obama]] in 2008, who carried it with almost 60 percent of the vote and a 22-point margin over [[John McCain]], the strongest showing for a Democrat in the county since Roosevelt. Obama won the county almost as easily in 2012, and since then, [[Hillary Clinton]], [[Joe Biden]], and [[Kamala Harris]] all prevailed the county by over twenty percentage points. The last Republican to win a statewide election in Washington County was [[Gordon H. Smith]] in [[2002 United States Senate election in Oregon|the 2002 Senate contest]]. In [[2008 United States Senate election in Oregon|the 2008 Senatorial election]], Democrat [[Jeff Merkley]] won 48.8 percent of the county's vote (111,367) while Republican incumbent Smith won 46.5 percent (106,114),<ref>{{Cite web |last=David Leip |title=2008 Senatorial General Election Results – Oregon |url=http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2008&fips=41&f=1&off=3&elect=0&class=2 |access-date=July 8, 2013 |website=uselectionatlas.org}}</ref> but no subsequent Republican Senate candidate has won 40 percent of the county's votes. In the 2020 presidential election, Biden hit 65.5% of the county's vote, the highest ever for a Democratic presidential nominee.

{{PresHead|place=Washington County, Oregon|source=<ref>{{Cite web |last=Leip |first=David |title=Atlas of US Presidential Elections |url=http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS |access-date=April 1, 2018 |website=uselectionatlas.org}}</ref>}}
<!-- PresRow should be {{PresRow|Year|Winning party|GOP vote #|Dem vote #|3rd party vote #|State}} -->
{{PresRow|2024|Democratic|92,590|193,013|12,346|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|2020|Democratic|99,073|209,940|11,313|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|2016|Democratic|83,197|153,251|32,784|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|2012|Democratic|93,974|135,291|7,758|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|2008|Democratic|89,185|141,544|5,903|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|2004|Democratic|107,223|121,140|2,945|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|2000|Democratic|86,091|90,662|9,221|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1996|Democratic|65,221|76,619|17,915|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1992|Democratic|57,146|67,528|42,521|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1988|Republican|67,018|59,837|2,356|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1984|Republican|75,877|44,602|417|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1980|Republican|57,165|37,915|16,275|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1976|Republican|52,376|34,847|3,388|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1972|Republican|43,958|27,890|3,390|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1968|Republican|34,105|22,943|2,794|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1964|Democratic|20,813|29,081|287|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1960|Republican|25,415|17,736|35|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1956|Republican|22,001|14,027|0|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1952|Republican|20,250|11,191|143|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1948|Republican|11,455|9,424|710|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1944|Republican|9,362|9,110|205|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1940|Democratic|8,367|8,626|110|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1936|Democratic|4,148|8,641|823|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1932|Democratic|4,201|6,824|548|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1928|Republican|6,162|3,544|173|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1924|Republican|4,203|2,103|2,835|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1920|Republican|4,947|2,262|432|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1916|Republican|4,888|3,363|452|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1912|Progressive|1,261|1,429|1,969|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1908|Republican|2,319|1,153|271|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1904|Republican|2,296|492|349|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1900|Republican|1,655|1,114|179|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1896|Republican|2,082|1,566|60|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1892|Republican|1,587|293|1,099|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1888|Republican|1,249|838|69|Oregon}}
{{PresRow|1884|Republican|946|766|135|Oregon}}
{{PresFoot|1880|Republican|880|578|37|Oregon}}