Free Republic

Today, at long last, Democrat Christine Gregoire and Republican Dino Rossi are supposed to find out which one will become Washington's next governor. At least that's the theory. What they will find out this afternoon, when the counties are required by law to finish counting ballots and certify their results, is who won the most votes. But a mandatory recount is almost certain, so the outcome probably won't be official until at least next week. And before either candidate is declared a winner, they may have to survive legal challenges to the result. After yesterday's counting, Rossi had a 19-vote...

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- After a day of vote-counting with more suspenseful twists than an Alfred Hitchcock movie, Republican Dino Rossi held a 19-vote lead over Democrat Christine Gregoire on Tuesday night in the governor's race. With the candidates so close, out of 2.8 million ballots cast, the winner will come down to the final day of counting. A statewide recount is looking more likely by the minute. Other than Rossi's miniscule lead, it was a good day for Gregoire. Tuesday's drama began when Grays Harbor County officials started recounting all 28,000 of their ballots after discovering a glitch that mistakenly...

I'll be updating the table below throughout the day as new returns are announced. The table columns are the same as yesterday. See this post for explanation. As I mentioned earlier, these are only estimates and projections based on the most recent available information from the Sec. of State and counties. This information has proven itself to be insufficiently reliable for making any real predictions, so I'm no longer going to call the race for either candidate at this point. Note also that Grays Harbor is going to recount, which is expected to improve Gregoire's margin by some unknown amount....