Longtime pollster Stuart Elway is ending the Elway Poll after 33 years, closing Washington’s only continuous statewide public-opinion survey.
His decision shutters the last independent survey tracking long-term voter attitudes, trend lines and political moods in Washington. Without it, Elway told Inside Olympia host Austin Jenkins, the state loses its only remaining source of stable, comparable data about what voters are thinking — particularly in a political climate where nationalization, misinformation and shrinking local news coverage already obscure the electorate’s true mood.
The shutdown caps a 50-year career that began in Olympia political circles, included early work for Gov. Dan Evans and eventually saw Elway lead The Seattle Times Washington Poll. When he launched his independent statewide survey in 1992, it quickly became an institution and earned an A-plus rating from FiveThirtyEight, placing him among the nation’s top five pollsters.
Over three decades, the Elway Poll fielded 257 surveys, interviewed 106,000 citizens, asked 7,000 questions and gathered responses from 6,300 locally elected officials and 2,000 lobbyists. Its most durable contribution may be the four recurring questions Elway began asking in 1992 about expectations for the coming year — for the country, the state, the community and respondents’ own households.
This July, those measures hit historic lows. “For only the second time in the poll’s history,” Elway said, “respondents anticipated things will be worse in all four areas.” Household optimism fell to 41%, far below the 33-year average of 70%. “People are in a very apprehensive mood,” he said.
That pessimism also shows up in negative ratings for state leaders. In the final CascadePBS Elway Poll in July, 32% of voters rated Ferguson’s first six months as “excellent” or “good.” Twenty-two percent of respondents said Ferguson was doing a “fair” job, and 31% said he was doing a poor job.In all, Elway says, that’s the lowest early rating since Mike Lowry in the 1990s. The Legislature fares similarly poorly as voters focus on taxes, affordability and the economy.
Over time, the poll documented Washington’s political shift from a purple, ticket-splitting state to a deep-blue one. The old “Cascade Curtain,” the east-west fault line that once defined the state’s political and cultural identity, has given way to an urban-rural divide driven by higher educational attainment, rising racial diversity and the growth of younger, college-educated voters, Elway said. Party identification has moved from near parity to giving Democrats a 20-point advantage.
That leaves Republicans with what Elway calls an “existential challenge” in a state where Donald Trump remains deeply unpopular. Democrats, meanwhile, face internal pressures because “large majorities allow factions within the parties to flex,” risking party unity, he said.
As he steps back from public polling, Elway hopes Washington will not lose sight of the voter’s perspective. “I always tried to take the voter’s point of view,” he said. “Making sure they have a seat at the table.” He hopes someone continues the work. “If I had won the Powerball, we’d still do this,” he joked. “But this has been a labor of love.”
"Inside Olympia" airs Saturday mornings at 5 on SPR News.