President Joe Biden won’t be the only Democratic candidate for voters to consider in Washington’s March 12 presidential primary.
Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips and self-help author Marianne Williamson will be on the ballot too. Those are the three names the Washington State Democratic Party submitted to the Secretary of State last week.
There will be five Republican candidates on the ballot: former president Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and investor Vivek Ramaswamy.
Those were the names turned in by the Washington State Republican Party last week.
In Washington, each party decides which candidates will get their names on the ballot. And the primary is unlike regular elections as the results are used to allocate delegates to candidates seeking to be their party’s nominee. Those selections are made at each party’s national nominating convention.
Also unique is that Washington voters must sign a party declaration on the ballot return envelope and can only choose a candidate from that party. In other words, a person who signs the Democratic Party declaration must vote for a Democrat. If they cast their ballot for a Republican it won’t count.
This year’s primary will be held one week after Super Tuesday in which 14 states will hold primaries. They are Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia.
In 2020, Biden edged U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders in Washington’s presidential primary, which featured 13 Democratic candidates. Trump, the incumbent president, faced no intraparty challenge.
— By Jerry Cornfield, Washington State Standard
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