Dino Rossi just came on TV, losing 51-49, and talked about how his campaign will go on throughout the week. Only, King County, Gregoire's base county, hasn't really come in yet. That means that Rossi has a few days of vote counting before he concedes. The trends were good in that race and these results bear that out.
In Washington's eighth, Darcy Burner is ahead by 5100 votes, but the count has not moved for hours and the counting machines are really slow and three hours behind. The trend at the end was against Darcy Burner in this one, and my guess is she'll wind up behind by the end of the night as the more Republican poll voters are counted. Still, with these initial results she's definitely in a good position to take the seat.
... Pierce absentees are coming in, and Darcy lost 1000 votes. That's a really good result.
One of the subtexts of the conflict in Seattle is the local kingmakers, which includes the media and the Republican establishment, fighting against labor and progressives. Today I came face to face with the Seattle press corps, a sad group of people facing impending layoffs who nonetheless manage to evoke no sympathy (this was written in anger, now I feel sympathy). I was in Seattle to report on Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi's deposition; Rossi is involved in the most heated gubernatorial race in the country, a rematch of the 2004 razor thin match between him and current Governor Christine Gregoire, a competent and moderately progressive Governor. Rossi is a sleazy conservative supposed slum lord who wants to lower the minimum wage and build sprawl everywhere he can. The builders in the state (the BIAW) love Rossi, obviously, and they are pouring massive sums of money into the race, flooding the airwaves in what will be a $40M+ election. Labor is backing Gregore with large sums of money as well, though not quite as much.
