Former state Sen. Dino Rossi, the eventual 133-vote loser in the highly contentious 2004 gubernatorial election in Washington state, is gearing up for a rematch against Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire. Rossi will make his bid official on Thursday.
There’s no doubt that Rossi will be a serious foe against Gregoire. Rossi seemed to benefit from favorable media coverage during the bitter re-count period in 2004, as evidenced by this poll showing that voters felt that he was robbed of the office and that he’d easily have won a hypothetical re-vote in late January, 2005.
Still, Gregoire seems to have had a largely uncontroversial first term, and the trendline of her approvals is respectable.
This will be a hard-fought race by the GOP — possibly their only real offensive opportunity to pick off an incumbent Democratic governor next year. But I’d be willing to bet that Gregoire has the early, if only slight, edge.
If you believe this poll from Strategic Vision:
If the Election for Governor in 2008 was between the Democrat Christine Gregoire and the Republican, Dino Rossi, whom would you vote for?
Christine Gregoire 47%
Dino Rossi 45%
Undecided 8%
“Above are the results of a three-day poll in the state of Washington. Results are based on telephone interviews with 800 likely voters in Washington, aged 18+, and conducted October 5-7, 2007. The margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.”
The margin of error means that if she indeed does have an edge, it is super small.
It is perhaps trite and banal to say “your vote makes the difference” but my wife and I voted for Gov Christine Gregoire as out of state absentee voters as I was active duty military at the time. A couple of points – when I visited Washington State recently it seemed to me Gov Gregoire was doing better than expectations and is well regarded. The reason why Dino Rossi did so well last election was Dino (with the help of a lot of negative campaigning) was able to define the image of candidate Gregoire. It’s not going to be so easy the second time around with Gov Gregoire.
Dino had a small window of opportunity after the 2004 election to take advantage of the undeserved sympathy given him because of the recounts. The Democratic discontent with Senator Cantwell gave Dino the chance to mount a serious statewide challenge to Cantwell and use his residual goodwill for political gain. Dino will not win the Governorship in 2008. This will be a strong year for Democrats and particularly for us Democrats in blue WA.