Democrats coast to victory in some Western states

It has become a truism of West Coast politics, from California to Washington, that the Pacific oceanfront is a kind of Democratopolis, with a culturally linked strip of liberal cities from San Francisco through Portland and Seattle that tilts left, votes left and takes surrounding states along for the ride.

Only one Republican in any West Coast state won a statewide election this year — Kim Wyman, Washington’s secretary of state-elect. Oregon residents have not elected a Republican to statewide office since 2002, and California has been bereft of statewide Republican officeholders since last year.

But figures from the Washington secretary of state’s office, where certified county results from the all-vote-by-mail election were posted Tuesday, show a pattern of coastal Democratic dominance that has perhaps not been this pronounced in a governor’s race here in at least 60 years — and probably ever.