I think this race is going to be very, very close. Though Obama is running far ahead of McCain in this district, if you've been following this site then you've been aware of the aggressive and effective campaign to delegitimize Darcy as both a creature of the netroots and an untrustworthy liar and pump up Reichert as a 'moderate' good guy. Both concepts are absurd, but they have taken hold in certain parts of the district. Reichert, the NRCC, and centrist activist Emily Heffter of the Seattle Times have been able to plant the seeds of mistrust among voters, and we'll see tonight just how much they are going to reap. What does that mean?
Well, it's going to be tight. Additionally, King County's election processes are unbelievably dysfunctional. The county, which is both Darcy's base and provides the bulk of the vote for the district, will count only around 40% of the ballots by the end of the day. By Friday, only about 70% of the ballots should be counted in King County, with the more conservative Pierce County having tallied up its voting totals much earlier. In both counties, the poll votes will be counted today, but most of the district votes by absentee, and the nature of the voting blocs are different depending on when you vote. Like most Democrats around the country, Darcy will have a lead among early voters, but she will probably lose the poll vote that is the first bit to be counted. So she'll wind up behind tonight, even if she's going to ultimately win the seat.
A a certain thresholds, there will be a hand or machine recount, so this race could go on for weeks. My hope is that Darcy puts it away tonight, but I don't think that's very likely. Here's Darcy herself on Dailykos:
I don't know whether we will know the outcome of my race tonight. The good news is that a huge number of people voted early by mail, and the enthusiasm was on our side. The bad news is that both King and Pierce Counties will be counting votes very, very slowly. We're currently expecting to be behind Congressman Reichert in the poll votes because so many of our voters voted early. And those votes of many of our most enthusiastic supporters won't be counted today; many of them won't be counted until late this week or early next week.
To be specific, we'll know the votes of the roughly 100k voters in my district who vote at the polls today, but only about 40k to 50k of the roughly 250k who voted early. Our best guess is that King and Pierce Counties will count 40k to 50k votes per day in my race, which is, obviously, another five or six days of counting.
So there we go. I know people tend to give lip service to the notion that the work doesn't stop the day after election day. In this case, that's actually very true. If the poll vote is at all close, my guess is Darcy takes the seat. If not, hold on to your hats, there's counting to do.
