That trend of late ballots favoring Republicans has even more evidence from this primary now...as Jim Camden of at the Spokesman Review has noted too.
Dino Rossi's campaign put out a memo today noting the stark shift in ballots counted on August 19th versus those counted after. That memo noted that five counties - Asotin, Clark, Cowlitz, Skamania, and Spokane - have flipped from Gregoire ahead on Tuesday to Rossi leading as of the most recent vote tallies. Meaning, Rossi is winning a decisive majority of later mail-in ballots to achieve such an overall shift since Primary Night.
Since that memo came out, additional county tallies (see full county-by-county results here) have shown further pro-Rossi trends. Mason has since moved from favoring Gregoire to having Rossi in the lead. Gregoire's once multiple-point leads in Skagit and Kitsap are nearly gone. And in Snohomish, Gregoire's 6% lead as of the evening of the 19th has dropped to just a little over 2% as of tonight, as Rossi has rolled up significant margins in later voting [UPDATE: Snohomish County released another tally Saturday morning, dropping Gregoire's lead even further, from 2.4% to 1.8%]
The Mason County example is particularly instructive since they released a vote tally on the 19th and then waited until today to put out a second. On Primary Night Gregoire led there 47.4% to Rossi's 46.7%. After the infusion of later mail-in ballots in a tally this afternoon, Rossi has leapt ahead to an overall margin of 48.3% to Gregoire's 46.0% - representing a massive swing in Rossi's favor.
The aforementioned Rossi memo is particularly interesting given the swings it shows in the large suburban counties that will likely decide a close race in November. Rossi's vote margins have spiked since initial counts on the 19th in Clark, Pierce, Snohomish, and Spokane Counties. Ballots counted after Primary Night show an improved margin for Rossi ranging from almost 7% better in Pierce to over an 14% improvement in Clark. And, those figures from the midday memo exclude additional, pro-Rossi tallies in Pierce, Snohomish, and Spokane this evening.
In related trend news, Norma Smith continues to extend her lead in the 10th LD, while ongoing counting in King County shows Toby Nixon further closing the gap in the 45th District. Similarly competitive races have concurrent themes as well. Steve Litzow has been closing on his competition since Primary Night tallies for the 41st LD. And Jan Angel has been expanding her lead in the open seat contest in the 26th.
If you want a different look at such a trend unfolding historically, you can wade back through results from Dave Reichert's win in 2006, watching poll voters erase Darcy Burner's lead from the early absentees. Then see counts on the following Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Monday steadily grow Reichert's advantage until he was declared the winner.
All to say that outside Democratic strongholds, we have a clear trend that confirms that notion that conservative voters tend to cast ballots later in the voting period than many of their liberal counterparts. This definitely bears keeping in mind for close races in November, especially with the prospect of days of waiting for the interminable process of receiving, processing, and counting ballots to unfold.
Posted by Eric Earling at August 22, 2008 09:05 PM | Email ThisOTOH, total estimated outstanding ballots State-wide is just under 186K, so unless those last 80K-or-so KC ballots are reported as being overwhelmingly for Gregoire, it should end up being a pretty good primary for Dino. But the jury is still somewhat out until we see the final KC numbers (let's hope all the dead voters and felon voters that were removed from the KC lists give us somewhat of a better result there this time).
Posted by: Methow Ken on August 22, 2008 09:22 PMThis means that just 'losing' a bag or two of known-late ballots (or known-early, whatever) can influence things.
Just saying that I'll be voting a little bit earlier here in KC for the actual election.
Posted by: Al on August 22, 2008 09:49 PMFor ballots counted and still outstanding for each county, see:
http://vote.wa.gov/Elections/WEI/VoterTurnout.aspx?ElectionID=25
For ''counted ballot'' results by county on the Gov race, U can go direct 2 (watch the REALLY long wrap):
http://vote.wa.gov/Elections/WEI/ResultsByCounty.aspx?RaceID=13&CountyCode=%20&ElectionID=25&RaceTypeCode=O&JurisdictionTypeID=2
It apears that there are still enough ballots left to count that if the trend continues it could be Rossi 47.1 and Gregoire 47.9 - or closer???
Posted by: Glenno on August 22, 2008 10:09 PMOh; of course.... I should have got that the first time. It was only because U said ''votes'' instead of ''vote'' that I thought you meant your county. Never mind:
To see if an INDIVIDUAL ballot has been counted yet, I believe the only place U can do that is thru your county auditor (somebody correct if that's wrong).
Posted by: Methow Ken on August 22, 2008 10:24 PMBreaking news: CNN and FOX are both reporting that Barry picked Biden.
So let's see if I understand this... the candidate of CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN has picked a guy that has served 35 YEARS in the Senate as his running mate...
I'm not sure if I'm confused or if Barry is confused about what CHANGE is!
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on August 22, 2008 10:33 PMYou are remiss in not mentioning that Mike Hope in the 44th LD was behind Liz Loomis by six points on election night, and is now down by less than two.
(Even Larry Countryman, who has not yet begun to run, really, has picked up about four points on his 44th LD opponent, Hans Dunshee.)
This race is very similar to the Norma Smith race: an incumbent who was appointed and faces a tough challenger with experience. But it looks like the incumbent could win in the 10th, and lose in the 44th.
Rossi can at least boast that his votes, plus those of the two minor Republican candidates Aiken (1.54%) and Lopez (0.35%) exceed those of Gregoire by something like 0.08% (considerably larger than the official margin in the November 2004 election. Of course, Democrat Joubert got 1.16%, so the Democratic total vote is still higher than the Republican/G.O.P. vote.
King County still has a total turnout of only 25.7%, compared with the statewide total of 36.26% (which actually means a turnout of a bit over 40% in the state, excluding King County).
Is King County Elections slow as molasses in counting the ballots? Did more voters in King County wait until the last minute to send in their ballots? Or were King County voters simply not as interested in the primary?
Posted by: Richard Pope on August 22, 2008 11:16 PMOne with brains and no experience paired with another with experience and no brains!
Posted by: AL on August 22, 2008 11:16 PMLooks like your lady Val Stevens is cleaning Fred Walser's clock in the 39th. Seems like her margin over Walser has increased by about 2 points or more since election night. I think she will win by 15 to 20 points in the general as well. Senator Stevens has a higher percentage than the Republicans running for the two House seats in the 39th LD, in spite of heavy Democratic targeting in favor of Walser.
Personally, I hope that more good Democratic money isn't thrown in after bad in that race. For your part, I am sure you have a big smile on your face and are saying: "Bring them on!"
Posted by: Richard Pope on August 22, 2008 11:25 PMWe know how four of the felons voted, and how one dead woman's vote was submitted by her Republican husband, so removing them from the rolls won't help the guy they voted for, now will it?
'Looks like King County Elections has their work cut out for them in this one. Lots of votes still out there in cemeteries, state prison release points and "day labor" pickup sites.'
While all of the Republican-run counties, reporting all these many new votes for Rossi, are perfectly clean. We know because they've never been investigated, right?
Posted by: tensor on August 23, 2008 03:12 PM