Gregoire overpowers Sims, will face Rossi

SEATTLE – Supporters cheered a jubilant Christine Gregoire on Tuesday night as she easily won a grueling race to become the Democratic candidate for governor this November.

With 65 percent of precincts reporting, Gregoire was trouncing fellow Democrat Ron Sims 68 percent to 27 percent. Sims had made tax reform – including launching a state income tax – the central theme of his bold, risky campaign.

“I knew it! Three to one!” shouted supporter David Corner, a Tacoma resident, as the first election returns scrolled across television screens in the Bellevue DoubleTree Hotel ballroom.

Sims conceded about two hours after the polls closed, but said he’d continue to push for tax reform.

“I’m going to continue to be a voice – and not a quiet voice,” the Spokane native said.

Gregoire will now go on to face Republican Dino Rossi, a former state senator, in November’s general election. Rossi, who had no significant Republican challengers in the primary, has the cash advantage in the race – at least for now. He has $1.7 million left in his campaign war chest, to Gregoire’s $1 million.

In her victory speech, Gregoire immediately went on the attack against Rossi, saying he’d voted to freeze the minimum wage, against extending unemployment benefits for laid-off workers, and for cuts to health care for children. She challenged him to three statewide televised debates.

“We see the world very differently,” she said.

Rossi, celebrating a few blocks away, said he’s the far better choice to get Washington’s economy back on track.

“I’m definitely running against the status quo,” he said. “She’s worked for government all her adult life. She has no private-sector experience whatsoever.”

It was a rough primary for Gregoire. Shortly after she announced that she’d run for Gov. Gary Locke’s soon-to-be-vacant seat, Gregoire was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer. She thought she’d have to drop out, but a mastectomy and encouragement from her doctor kept her in the race.

In recent weeks, Gregoire faced questions about being president of a whites-only sorority at the University of Washington in the 1960s. Furious at allegations that she was a racist, Gregoire pointed out that as an alumna, she campaigned to get the sorority to change its unwritten policy.

“For me and my family, there could have been nothing more hurtful than to call me a racist or a white supremacist,” she told a crowd at a Seattle hotel last week.

Sims, who is black, never said she was a racist. But Gregoire blamed him for orchestrating some of the criticism of her, a charge he flatly denied.

Sims fought an uphill race from the beginning, raising only about 40 percent as much money as Gregoire. And Sims staked everything on the primary. By last week, campaign finance reports show that he had just $70,000 left.

Sims, now in his second term as King County executive, ran a similarly high-stakes campaign.

He painted himself as a bold, passionate leader, and hitched his candidacy to a controversial plan. He wants to scrap the state’s business tax, reduce the sales and property taxes, and replace them with a tiered state income tax. Under his plan, he says, 80 percent of Washingtonians would pay less in taxes. The wealthiest would pay more – up to 10 percent of income for a millionaire.

Sims said Tuesday that he had no regrets.

“I enjoyed raising the issue that people said shouldn’t be raised,” he said. “I grew up in a household where candor was very important.”