The Flag of the World

King County’s big push today was countered largely by Spokane County, a county that really knows what it’s doing. Not only did they count essentially all their votes, but those votes broke for Rossi 2% better than his already impressive margin there, adding nearly 7,000 votes to the total and 800 votes to Rossi’s lead. Pierce, Chelan and Clark Counties also weighed in, the latter two coming out better for Rossi than the votes before. Cowlitz county, alas, will not switch, as Rossi was bested by 9 votes in the last 500 from that Blue county. After the big hit from King County, Rossi ends the day with a 1,900 vote lead.

The press may spin today as a success for Gregoire. After all, she won a court case, and she gained about 1,500 votes on Rossi. They would be very wrong to do this. First off, the court case was essentially pointless. Realistic best case scenario, Gregoire gains about 400 votes from it, which, at this point, is nowhere near enough. Second, though the race has narrowed, it has not narrowed much. His projected lead is a bit slimmer than it was at the end of last night, but only by about 300 votes–meanwhile, Gregoire is running out of places to find votes.

There are just under 42,000 votes left to count. Only 14,475 of these are from counties Gregoire won. The bulk of Gregoire’s support will come from the 11,000 votes left in King County. Rossi’s votes, on the other hand will come from all across the state: there are eight Rossi counties with 2000 or more estimated votes left to count, including Benton, Walla Walla and Yakima counties, all of which were won by Rossi by more than King was won by Gregoire. Allow me to break the statewide vote down a bit further:

Strongly Gregoire: King, San Juan, Jefferson
Gregoire-Rossi %: 59-41%
Estimated votes left to count: 11,175

Weakly Gregoire: Pacific, Thurston
Gregoire-Rossi %: 54.25-45.75%
Estimated votes left to count: 2,050

Barely Gregoire: Whatcom, Cowlitz
Gregoire-Rossi %: 50.75-49.25%
Estimated votes left to count: 3,250

Barely Rossi: Snohomish, Mason, Kitsap, Gray’s Harbor
Gregoire-Rossi %: 49-51%
Estimated votes left to count: 5,725

Weakly Rossi: Wahkiakum, Spokane, Skamania, Skagit, Pierce, Klickitat, Island, Clark, Clallam
Gregoire-Rossi %: 46.5-53.5%
Estimated votes left to count: 9,338

Strongly Rossi: Asotin, Benton, Chelan, Columbia, Douglas, Ferry, Franklin, Garfield, Grant, Kittias, Lewis, Lincoln, Okanogan, Pend Oreille, Stevens, Walla Walla, Whitman, Yakima
Gregoire-Rossi %: 35-65%
Estimated votes left to count: 9,765

Going just off of those numbers, Rossi should gain another 1,400 votes in the last counting. Even if Rossi continues to do as poorly in King County’s late ballots as he has so far, he still wins by over 2,300 votes and avoids the automatic recount. It’s not as settled as I’d like it to be, but if Gregoire pulls this off, I will be both surprised and–at this point–very, very suspicious.

UPDATE: To add some graphical significance, I’ve color-coded a map to show you how the above catagories break down geographically.

Posted by Timothy Goddard at 9:08 pm 11/12/2004 | Election 2004| Northwest Politics

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