WA Gov -- brief interim report

Today's new count is trickling in as the counties report.  I'll be heading off soon for the monthly meeting of my Legislative District's Democrats, so the day's overall update of the Gregoire-Rossi race may come later than usual.

At the moment I write this, Gregoire has once again fallen behind in the to-date count.  But at the same time she has made some appreciable gains in my projection.

Why and how?

Simple, really -- almost all of the reports so far have been from Republican counties.  It's now gotten to the point that the estimates of to-be-counted ballots show that almost exactly as many remain to be tallied in Gregoire counties as in those where Rossi leads.

Going into today, six counties still estimated that they had over 1000 uncounted ballots on hand.  Five of those counties (four where Rossi leads, one Gregoire) have now reported the bulk of their ballots, leaving just one county holding more than 1000.  That county, however, is King, which holds nearly half of the estimated number remaining.

Gregoire has done better than previously in the late counting in several Rossi counties, exactly equalling him in today's count from Snohomish and losing by only five in Whitman.  Thus, although the actual count at 5:53pm Pacific shows Gregoire trailing by 619 votes, the projection -- before today's King County tally -- places her only 802 in arrears when all is said and done.

Tight and tighter.

More later, after the day's tally is completed.