OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Washington state's presidential primary date is still scheduled to be held in late May after Democrats refused to support moving the statewide contest to an earlier date.
ecretary of State Kim Wyman and Republican officials had requested that it be moved to March.
A move to change the May 24 primary date to March 8 -- just a week after the round of "Super Tuesday" primaries across the country -- failed to get the two-thirds vote required by the Presidential Primary Date Selection Committee.
The four Democrats on the committee said it would cause too much confusion for Democratic voters.
A second vote seeking to change the date to March 22 also failed.
Currently, Washington has both a presidential primary and a caucus system, but Democrats ignore the primary and use only the caucus system to allocate their delegates to candidates at the national convention.
In the past, state Republicans allocated about half of their delegates from the primary, half from the caucuses.