When I was a child, my parents told me not to blame other people for my mistakes. Washington State Democrats apparently weren’t raised so well.
A state that has remained a Democratic stronghold for over 40 years still feels the need to blame its problems on the man in the other Washington.
In a recent press release, Washington State Democrats lamented “new data” showing that “Washington has lost 16,600 jobs over the past year.” Of course, they blamed the state jobs numbers on President Trump.
But the data show the opposite.
Contrary to the Democrats’ reporting, Washington’s economy gained 16,100 jobs from July 2025 to July 2026, according to the state’s Employment Security Department. After The Daily Wire inquired about the discrepancy, Democrats privately acknowledged the mistake and deleted this line from their original statement.
But not only did they fail to issue a public correction; they then turned around and took credit for all the job gains.
After issuing the correction, Washington Democratic Party Chair Shasti Conrad told The Daily Wire that Washington state sets itself apart from the rest of the country.
“Despite economic chaos from the other Washington, our Washington’s Democratic leadership and robust business sector were able to add jobs while the rest of the country experienced a net loss.”
In the press release, Conrad blamed President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans for the state’s economic decline.
“On the campaign trail, Donald Trump promised to deliver a brighter future for Washington families, but instead all he’s done is try to ruin Washington’s economy, kill off good-paying jobs, and spike prices on just about everything,” Conrad said in a statement on Aug. 21. “Now, Washington families are forced to take on further debt or empty their savings account just to afford the essentials or pay their bills.”
It is funny that a state with a Democratic trifecta for the last eight years still blames its problems on Republicans. Washington holds the nation’s longest streak of Democratic governors, last electing a Republican to office in 1980. In political maps of the U.S., Washington remains blue in every variation. Add more rain or remove the mountains, Washingtonians will vote Democrat.
For a state that prides itself on its ability to disconnect from the nation’s red capital in both law and politics, it is telling that Democrats still blame Trump and his Republican conglomerate for the state’s many problems.
Democrats argued that the average Washington family has spent over $3,600 more on goods and services this year because of Trump’s “harmful agenda.”
But Trump’s agenda is not to blame for the state’s expensive goods and services. In 2024, Democrats put the state in a budget deficit of $10-12 billion over a period of four years. The only way out of this is to tax people more.
Enter the gas tax hike.
Washington boasts the nation’s third-highest gas prices, averaging out to $5.13/gallon, putting it 25% above the national average. But this isn’t a major uptick from the Biden years. In 2022, under Biden, Washington gas price averages rose to $5.51/gallon.
Last year, Washington state Democrats pushed a gas tax that would take the already-high state gas tax from 49.3 cents to 55.4 cents per gallon, with a 2% increase each year to “account for inflation.” Comparatively, the federal government’s gas tax is $0.184/gallon.
While the war in Iran has modestly raised gas prices nationwide, Washington residents could have seen lower prices if not for excessive taxes imposed by Democrats.
In a statement to The Daily Wire, Conrad praised state Democrats for a successful Primary, “winning over voters with our message of affordability, lowering costs, and work [sic] to counter the chaos emanating from the Trump-Vance administration.”
But their supposed “message of affordability” is built on statistical errors and an attempt to ignore the taxes they have imposed on their constituents.
It’s time for Washington state Democrats to step up and take responsibility for their actions. If they want to blame imaginary job losses on Trump, they need to credit him for the real job gains they now enjoy.
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Christina Lewis is a journalism fellow with the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. She graduated from Hillsdale College, where she studied history, politics, and journalism. You can follow her work on X @By_Christina.
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