After announcing late last week that the Rossi campaign had crossed the 43,000th contributor threshold, today comes word they've passed 44,000.

This is an unheard of phenomenon in Evergreen State politics. New donors seem to be growing on trees and those small-dollar contributors keep coming back to the well - at least based on how things ended up last month.

And if recent comment threads at Sound Politics are any indicator, people are sending coin simply because they're absolutely pumped up, period...about Palin, Rossi, you name it.

Is it safe to say we have a reverse enthusiasm gap in the Washington state Governor's race?

UPDATE: speaking of pumped up, note this from SurveyUSA's latest in the Governor's race, which has Rossi up narrowly at 48% to Christine Gregoire's 47%:

Among women, female Democrat Gregoire had led by 24 points in May, 60% to 36%. Today, the candidates are tied. About two-thirds of the gains that Rossi has made among women since May occurred before Sarah Palin became the new face of the Republican party. Since Palin was named, Rossi is up 3 points among women, Gregoire is down 7. There is offsetting but slightly less dramatic movement among men, where Rossi had led by 20 points in May, but leads by 2 points today. Voters without a college degree are shifting Republican, both in the contest for President and in the contest for Governor. Rossi and Gregoire were tied among the lesser educated in April, May, June and July ... but today, Rossi leads by 12 points. In Eastern WA, where Rossi has led sometimes by a little, he now leads by a lot, 31 points.

Honestly, I think the results are a little screwy in sum - perhaps in part to the volatile nature of subgroup comparisons when the total sample ranges somewhere between 600-700 likely voters per poll. Huge spike in women coupled by a massive fall among men (or vice versa depending on your partisan perspective). Eh, not sure about that.

But, a trend favoring in Rossi among women and the less educated does align with his campaign's direct efforts to speak to kitchen table issues, at least anecdotally.

Either way, it's still a barn burner.

UPDATE: Note that SurveyUSA's poll of the Presidential race in the Evergreen State - with Obama up 49% to McCain's 45% - also shows the same divergent trend of women moving towards Republicans and men towards Democrats.

Weird.

Not sure I'm entirely comfortable that's accurate...it's almost too counterintuitive.