In Washington, a bloc of New American Voters — recently naturalized citizens that have earned the right to vote — has the potential to play an outsized role in the outcomes of critical federal and state races.

This voting bloc is multiracial, multigenerational, geographically diverse, and majority female. New American Voters hold distinct ideologies, experiences, and viewpoints, and will be motivated by a variety of issues this November. 

Washington will be one of the most critical states during the November 2022 midterm elections and New American Voters can sway the outcome. Washington ranks 17th in the nation according to the New American Voters Impact Model, which was created by the National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA) and the U.S. Immigration Policy Center (USIPC) at the University of California, San Diego to showcase the potential of this critical voting bloc to influence the outcome of midterm elections in 50 states.

This report offers data that illustrates how New American Voters can have an outsized impact. 

• Washington is home to 86,909 citizens naturalized between 2016 and 2020, approximately 20 percent of the state’s total number of naturalized citizens.
• Newly naturalized citizens in Washington are racially and ethnically diverse, with approximately 48 percent from Asia, 22 percent from the Americas, 17 percent from Europe, and 12 percent from the African continent.
• Approximately 62 percent of Washington’s newly naturalized citizens are under the age of 45 and around 55 percent are women.
• The Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metropolitan area has the state’s highest concentration of naturalized citizens, at over 470,000, followed by the Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro metropolitan area, which includes parts of Washington and Oregon, with over 186,000, and then the Yakima metropolitan area with approximately 17,000.

Washington’s cohort is part of an estimated 5.19 million newly naturalized citizens across the U.S., according to New American Voters 2022: Harnessing the Power of Naturalized Citizens, a report released by NPNA, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), APIAVote, and USPIC.

The power of this potential voting bloc is determined by individuals’ ability to both register and vote this November. 

This electoral season presents many challenges, including the need for organizations to adapt their voter engagement work to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, language access issues , and ongoing efforts to tighten and restrict access to voting, particularly targeting voters of color.

Another challenge that has emerged in recent years is the increasing backlog and processing delays of citizenship applications. 

According to the latest data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), there are over 672,000 pending citizenship applications nationwide, with 23,385 applications backlogged in USCIS’ three offices in Washington.

While the national average processing delay is around 11 months, approximately 80 percent of applications are processed within 14.5 months in USCIS’ Yakima office and approximately 80 percent of applications are processed within 19.5 months in USCIS’ Seattle office.

This means that immigrants who are eligible for citizenship and who would have otherwise naturalized and have had time to register to vote in this year’s elections may not be able to do so given the naturalization application backlog. 

Washington-based organizations OneAmerica and the Seattle Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs are partnering with NPNA’s New American Voters Campaign, a non-partisan nationwide effort to address naturalization barriers and encourage newly naturalized citizens to register and vote.