UPDATE 1 - WEDS. NOV. 10, 12:35 PM, PST: Rossi now up by a wider margin, of 4,429 votes, as more absentees roll in. Ooh Cha! UPDATE 2: As of 1:38 PM PST, 11/10/04, Dino's margin had grown a bit more, to 5,018 votes. UPDATE 3, as of 5:48 PM, PST on 11/10/04, Dino's lead was 3,492 votes.
11/09/04. Republican Dino Rossi opened the day down 8,700 votes to Democrat Christine Gregoire in the election for WA Gov. As of 5:30 PM, PST, he's up by 2,123 votes. Here's the WA Sec. of State's site; the numbers are likely to change further, unless somehow this was the final blast of an estimated 213,000 (mostly) absentee, and provisional ballots that were left to count today.
A (Seattle) KOMO-TV report at 5:20 had Rossi up 1,700 and noted there were "thousands" more absentees to count, how ever many exactly that turns out to be.
Important to note, especially for Dino rooters: as the Seattle Times story linked to below notes, the bulk of the (213,000) absentees that were to be counted today (and ARE, as you read this probably STILL being counted) were in the WA counties where Rossi bested Gregoire - NOT King County (home of Seattle) and the handful of others where Gregoire was besting Rossi.
If the victory margin is less than .5 percent (AND less than 2K votes) an automatic recount is triggered. A Seattle Times story this morning indicated that provisional ballots are being evaluated for legitimacy on a county by county basis, as they roll in, along with all the absentee ballots. Absentee ballots counted after the polls closed in WA Nov. 2 may end up approaching 1 million in number, although we won't know the exact number for a while.
Why care about this race's outcome? As I've said a number of times (including here, here, here, and here) Dino would be a breath of fresh air in Olympia's ossified culture of governance - not to mention the first Republican to hold the WA governorship since 1980-1984.
Posted by Matt Rosenberg at November 9, 2004 06:19 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.rosenblog.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/569
Matt:
I think that Rossi will be behind again tomorrow night but after that it will all be upHILL!
Today it was Rossi's counties that were counted. Tomorrow it will Gregoire's; King, Whatcom, Thurston, etc.
Win or lose, it is fun for me to raz friends who can not understand how she could be losing Pierce and Snohomish Counties. Could it be that those county's 20-year ago Reagan D's think it is again "time for a change"?
Personally, I feel that the McKenna/Senn race was more important for WA State's future just as I would have been happy with a McKenna/Sidran final.
One can easily see that I have been a Dan Evans/Scoop Jackson voter. Too bad that the MSM columists can not understand that it was the 'middle' that moved to Bush and not a 22% moral voter vs. 49% in 1996.
Posted by: Gary in Olympia at November 9, 2004 07:04 PMGary, good to hear from you. I agree. However this turns out...and I would caution Rossi rooters from declaring victory quite yet, it's a signal moment nonetheless..no R has come this close for WA Gov in decades.....
That says something not only about (D) Gregoire's lackluster candidacy, and Dino's forceful presence......but also about this state's endearingly enigmatic politics, and the changing times in which we live....Meaning that Biz As Usual in Olympia is seen as a problem, and rightly so.
If Dino IS elected, hopefully he will spend some "political capital" to logroll and thus push the legislature, FINALLY, toward passage of legislation for comprehensive performance audits.
That's something state govt. here has long needed....to evaluate potential waste, determine further spending cuts, and help restore overall credibility with skeptical taxpayers.
That way, Tim Eyman won't have to add the emotional/political baggage of his name and efforts to a ballot initiative for performance audits (as he has now indicated he will).
Posted by: Matt R. at November 9, 2004 09:08 PMI am appalled,as a voter, that my vote seems to mean so little, in the whole process. Our opposition apparently can easily just keep counting until they win. I would like to see a new law that allows only one recount. Please do not concede, as this is a travesty.
Posted by: Frank at December 30, 2004 07:19 AMI am appalled,as a voter, that my vote seems to mean so little, in the whole process. Our opposition apparently can easily just keep counting until they win. I would like to see a new law that allows only one recount. Please do not concede, as this is a travesty.
Posted by: Frank at December 30, 2004 07:21 AMI do not agree with the way the election went this year and believe there should be another vote started and recycle the old one's.
Posted by: Ron Brown at December 30, 2004 03:21 PM