Washington’s Senate primary is next Tuesday, and with a week left before voters head to the polls, it looks like Democrat Patty Murray and Republican Dino Rossi will advance to the general election, a new SurveyUSA poll finds. Washington state has an open primary, meaning the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, move on to compete in November. In SurveyUSA’s new poll, Murray leads with 41% of the vote and Rossi gets 33%. Clint Didier, a Tea Partier and former NFL player, is a distant third with 11%.
Past polling of the race has also shown Murray and Rossi to have commanding leads over other primary contenders. The last time SurveyUSA polled Washington, they found Murray with 37% and Rossi with 33%, while Didier lagged behind in third with 5%.
Because Washington’s open primary doesn’t limit candidates by party, this year’s ballot contains a few colorful characters. In the latest SurveyUSA poll, a man who calls himself “Goodspaceguy” gets 1% of the vote, as did a person listed on the ballot as “Mike the Mover.”
The margin of error of SurveyUSA’s latest poll is ±3.9 percentage points. Check out TPMDC’s full coverage of the race here.
