Today was a very good day for Christine Gregoire, the Democratic candidate in the tight, tight, tight race for governor of Washington.
Coming out of the weekend, she trailed Republican Dino Rossi by 1920 votes. Projecting the through-Friday percentages for the three candidates (Libertarian Ruth Bennett is also in the race) onto each county's reported uncounted ballots, the weekend estimate was that in the end Rossi would prevail by 3403 votes out of almost 2.9 million ballots cast.
Thirteen of Washington's 39 counties reported additional counts on Monday, and at day's end Gregoire was back in the lead ... by 158 votes. My projections still come out as a Rossi victory, by a mere 1430 votes, but there's some reason for optimism on the Democratic side.
Looking at today's newly-added votes, Gregoire's percentage exceeded her previous pace in seven of the 13 reporting counties (including one small county that reported, but added no new ballots). Rossi came in ahead of his pace in only one county; Bennett was the big winner, topping her pace in all but one county and relegating both of the others to below-pace percentages in four counties.
Now, in most cases the candidates' percentages differed from their previous pace by very narrow margins. That wasn't the case in King County, however. Through Friday, King County's pattern was 57.7% for Gregoire, 40.1% for Rossi, 2.1% for Bennett. The King County ballots reported on Monday came in at 58.8%, 37.4%, 3.8%. Gregoire gained over a point on her pace, but Bennett picked up votes at nearly twice her overall rate.
There's even more positive news, however. Over the weekend, both parties pushed efforts to locate voters whose absentee or provisional ballots had been rejected for lack of a signature. Washington law permits such voters to rectify that oversight by appearing at their county elections office to sign the outer envelopes of their ballots. Well, the Democrats' hard work may have paid off in King County. At the end of the day on Friday, the county estimated that they had 11,000 uncounted ballots. After Monday's report, their estimate is that 4000 ballots remain to be processed. However, on Monday King County added to its total not 7000 (11,000 minus 4000), not 8000, not 10,000, not 12,000, but nearly 17,000 additional ballots!
Whether any additional gains of that sort will be seen in the next two days -- certified totals must be submitted to the Secretary of State on Wednesday -- is unknown at this point. Of the alleged 21,666 remaining ballots, large chunks will come from such heavily-Republican counties as Benton (68.2% Rossi, 2200 ballots) and Yakima (64.1% Rossi, 2500 ballots). On Gregoire's side are big numbers from King (57.7%, 4000 ballots), Thurston (53.2%, 2000 ballots), and Whatcom (49.8%, 3200 ballots). Again, provisional ballots may alter those, and other, county counts appreciably.
One other note -- almost 44% of the remaining ballots come from counties where Gregoire leads, up from 40% Friday night and 37% on Thursday. In those seven counties combined, she leads 56.4% to 41.4%. Rossi's combined lead in his 32 counties is 54.1% to 43.7%.
Still waaaaaay too close to call...
There's excellent news on the legislative front. Clark County says it has only 200 more ballots to count, while Craig Pridemore (D) leads incumbent senator Don Carlson (R) by 639 votes in the 49th District (which constitutes only about 30% of the county). Only 106 uncounted ballots in Pierce County, so Tami Green's 232-vote margin over incumbent Bob Lawrence in a 28th District (just 15% of the county) House race should hold. Same picture in the 26th District House races, where incumbent Democrat Patricia Lantz leads challenger Matt Rice by 352 votes while Derek Kilmer (D) has stetched his margin over incumbent Lois McMahan (R) to 1010 votes. Thus, the overall gains of two senators -- wresting control of the chamber, by 26-23, from the bad guys -- and three representatives -- cementing a nice 55-43 Democratic margin -- will be maintained.
Previous diaries in my series:
Friday, November 12 (PM)
Thursday, November 11 (PM)
Wednesday, November 10 (PM)
Tuesday, November 9 (PM)
Tuesday, November 9 (AM)
Monday, November 8 (PM)