Pierce County voted blue in presidential race, but Trump made his best showing ever here
Pierce County has voted blue through the past three presidential elections. This year county residents voted a tad bluer than they did overall in 2020 and 2016, with fewer people voting third-party.
Still, president-elect Donald Trump gained traction, the numbers show.
According to early polling results, as of 8 p.m. Nov. 5 with 708 of 732 precincts reporting, Vice President Kamala Harris and Tim Walz had received 53.79% of the vote in Pierce County. Former President Donald Trump and JD Vance received 43.33%.
In 2020, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris received 53.76% of the vote in Pierce County, and Trump and Mike Pence received 42.61%.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine received 47.92% of the vote in Pierce County. Trump and Pence received 40.78%.
As reported by the Associated Press, the majority of people in King County, Thurston County and Kitsap County voted for Harris in the general election as of 10:30 p.m. Nov. 5. Early polling had Trump winning Mason County by 0.5% or 135 votes.
A trend of fewer people voting third-party
Over the years, fewer people have voted for third-party presidential candidates in Pierce County. In 2024, no third-party candidate received more than 1.25% of the vote.
That wasn’t always the case.
In 2016, nearly 20,000 people, or 5.53% of Pierce County voters, voted for the Libertarian ticket of Gary Johnson and Bill Weld in the presidential election. More than 11,500 people voted for a write-in candidate (3.20%) and about 6,000, or 1.71%, voted for the Green Party candidate Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka.
In 2020 Libertarian party candidates Jo Jorgensen and Jeremy “Spike” Cohen received 2.26% of the vote, and the rest of the candidates trailed behind, not reaching close to 1%.
On Nov. 5 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Nicole Shanahan, who suspended their Independent campaign and endorsed Trump in August, received the most votes of a third-party candidate in Pierce County but barely made a dent: 1.25% or 3,990 votes. Stein and Rudolph Ware received 1,313 votes, or 0.41%.
This story was originally published November 6, 2024 at 11:47 AM.
