Rossi holds governor’s race lead

Dino Rossi can claim the lead in the Washington governor’s race for three straight days, at least.

Rossi led by 3,492 ballots at the end of tabulating Wednesday, a slight increase in his margin over Democrat Christine Gregoire as of Tuesday evening.

He gets to keep the lead today because none of the state’s 39 counties is scheduled to report ballot summaries on the Veterans Day holiday.

The Rossi campaign seemed to be low-balling his prospects Wednesday afternoon, sending out a statement that they expected to fall behind when King County tabulated some 20,000 ballots in the late afternoon.

Gregoire is collecting about 60 percent of the vote in the state’s most populous county, although Rossi is leading in most other counties.

Later, Rossi spokeswoman Mary Lane revised her statement, because of the type of ballots being counted.

Lane said she expected about half the ballots counted in King County to be provisional ballots – those cast by voters who either lost an absentee ballot or showed up at the wrong precinct – from Seattle, and were expected to break heavily for Gregoire.

In fact, only about 2,000 of the 19,000 ballots counted in King County Wednesday were provisional ballots.

“We’re happy with the results and glad to see Dino still leading,” Lane said in a press release.

Morton Brilliant, a spokesman for Gregoire, said they expected to finish the day behind Rossi.

“Tuesday and Wednesday were kind of a one-two punch with Rossi’s best counties tallying their ballots,” Brilliant said.

While Gregoire leads in King County, Rossi is ahead in Spokane, Snohomish and Pierce, and piled up big margins – although relatively few extra votes – in many of the counties east of the Cascades.

Small shifts in either candidate’s support in the absentee ballots could be the difference in the election. Each campaign was able to point to shifts that they believe will clinch the victory for their candidate.

“This is such a crazy jigsaw of a map that it’s impossible to draw any conclusions,” Brilliant said.

All counties must certify and report their results by Nov. 17. State law will require a recount if the margin is closer than 2,000 votes.