By Gene Balk

The Seattle Times

What’s the No. 1 reason that millions of Americans sat out the election in 2016?

Answer: The candidates themselves, according to new survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Of the nearly 20 million registered voters who stayed home in November, 1 in 4 said it was because of a dislike of the candidates or campaign issues — nearly double the percentage from the 2012 election.

It’s also the first time since 1996, when the Census Bureau began asking nonvoters about their reasons, that dislike of the candidates was the top response.

When you consider who was running, it isn’t all that surprising. Both major-party candidates, Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton, had historically low election-eve favorability ratings.

But nowhere was the electorate more disgusted with the choices than right here in Washington.

Nearly 36 percent of registered voters in the state who didn’t cast a ballot — that’s about 170,000 people — sat out the election because they didn’t like the candidates. That percentage ranks Washington No. 1 among the 50 states, and the District of Columbia.

It’s a striking increase from 2012, when only 16 percent of the state’s nonvoters gave that as their primary reason. Washington didn’t even rank among the top 10 then.

What was so repellent about the candidates to Washington voters in 2016?

“It was a very negative campaign,” said Emilio Garza, executive director of Washington Bus, a Seattle-based nonprofit that focuses heavily on get-out-the-vote efforts.

“It became about the candidates themselves, not the issues,” he said. “What we were hearing on the ground was that folks didn’t feel like they were connecting with the candidates on the issues — not at all. They were just really fed up with the way the race was being framed.”

And then, of course, there was the Bernie Sanders factor.

During the Democratic primaries, Seattle embraced the Vermont senator like no other big city. And for a lot of his supporters here, it was “Bernie or bust.”

“He was a very compelling candidate,” Garza said. “It would have been really interesting to see how Bernie Sanders would have done if he had moved on to the general.”

But once Clinton secured the nomination, there was never any doubt that she would win Washington’s 12 electoral votes. That probably explains why “my vote wouldn’t make a difference” was the No. 2 reason given by the state’s nonvoters. Almost 20 percent chose that response, making it a distant second to dislike of the candidates.