According to statistics recently released by the Washington State Office of Financial Management, Washington’s total population has grown by an estimated 84,550 over the past few years — and now exceeds 8 million people as of April 1, 2024. While the state has been considered safely “blue” when it comes to politics for at least the last couple of decades, there are some notable changes in demographics that indicate the state will become even more liberal leaning in the years ahead.

Washington state’s modest population increase has occurred despite the fact that Washington continues to bleed population to other states, primarily Idaho and Texas. This loss of thousands of mostly conservative residents is being offset by large numbers of foreigners who are migrating into the state. Without this rise in “international migration”, Washington state would be experiencing a net decrease in population.

In addition to these consequential migration patterns, Washington’s birthrate continues to decline while the death rate continues to rise thanks in large part to an aging baby boomer generation and the continuing negative effects of the COVID pandemic.

Here’s how the WA State Office of Financial Management describes what’s happening….

“Washington State has been experiencing a net loss of residents, particularly due to domestic migration. From July 2020 to July 2021, the state’s population growth was only 0.3%, which is much lower than in previous years.”

“In the period from July 1, 2021 to July 1, 2022, Washington had a net loss of about 3,600 people to other states.”

“The trend continued, with Washington losing 23,497 people in net domestic migration between April 1, 2020, and July 1, 2023.”

“Despite this, international migration has helped offset the loss, adding 28,919 people to the state’s population.”

“Idaho: Washington had a net loss of around 7,100 residents to Idaho, with about 14,700 people moving from Washington to Idaho.”

“Texas: About 20,400 people left Washington for Texas, resulting in a net loss of around 6,600 residents to the state.”

“These trends indicate that while Washington is losing residents to other states, it is also gaining residents from international migration.”

“Consistent with previous years, over 68% of state population growth occurred in the five largest metropolitan counties. The nine counties with populations between 100,000 and 350,000 saw 22% of the state’s growth. Counties with less than 100,000 had a 10% share, larger than the previous year. Kittitas (2.7%), Grant (1.9%) and Clark (1.7%) were the three fastest growing counties.”

“The April 1, 2024, population estimate for Washington’s incorporated cities and towns is 5,288,500, an increase of 1.3% from the previous year. The top 10 cities for numeric change, in descending order, are Seattle, Vancouver, Tacoma, Redmond, Spokane Valley, Bellingham, Kent, Arlington, Bothell and SeaTac. Seattle’s population increased by 18,500 people, for a total of 797,700.”

If anyone was hoping that Washington would eventually become less liberal, less “blue”, I’m afraid these numbers are a clear indication that such hope is misplaced.

Sources for this article include:

https://ofm.wa.gov/about/news/2024/06/washington-state-tops-8-million-residents-2024