It’s that time of the day again, when the various counties start releasing their latest ballot results, and there are a handful of races I’m still watching with interest.
Of course, the biggest one is the race between Supreme Court Justice/Dress-up Nazi Richard Sanders, and n0t-crazy challenger Charlie Wiggins. Sanders currently leads by over 18,000 votes, and if current trends hold true my back of the napkin calculations show him just squeaking by, but a little movement in Wiggins direction in the remaining ballots could prove decisive. So I’m still crossing my fingers.
And then there’s the WA-02 race between Democratic Rep. Rick Larsen and teahadist challenger John Koster. I’ve already called this one for Larsen, but I don’t get to claim bragging rights until everybody else calls it too. With San Juan County’s final significant ballot dump this afternoon, Larsen’s lead has grown to 2,025 votes, and that’s simply too big a difference for Koster to make up barring a dramatic shift in his direction in the remaining ballots.
Finally, there are a handful of legislative races that remain too close to call, but some of which look extremely promising… again, assuming the remaining ballots don’t trend much too differently than those counted the previous two days.
More to come.
UPDATE:
King County just reported another 74,265 ballots (with another 195,000 remaining), and the Democratic trends continue. State Sen. Rodney Tom has now opened 1,010 vote lead in LD-48 after trailing big-spending Republican Greg Bennett by 133 votes on election night, and Rep. Roger Goodman has finally taken a lead in LD-45, by 375 votes, over Republican thug Kevin Haistings. And in LD-1, Luis Moscoso has extended his lead to 179 votes over teahadist Heidi Munson, but we’ll have to wait for Snohomish to come in to see if that holds up.
UPDATE, UPDATE:
Still waiting on Snohomish, but with Larsen now up 3,322 votes, and dramatically expanding his margin in Whatcom County to nearly 58% of today’s batch, it’s hard to believe nobody else has called this race. (I just heard KUOW describe this as “too close to call,” but, well, it isn’t.)
Additional information on several such races here.
Yes, shameless diary-pimping.
That’s a good read N in Seattle. Thank you for taking the time to be so thorough.
It was actually the third in a (blissfully short, compared to 2004) series. The others:
WA-Sen 2010: I’m breaking out my spreadsheet (Wednesday)
WA-Sen: A good day for Patty (with poll) (Thursday)
If I read it correctly, the Kostner/Larsen race will avoid an automatic recount as long as Larsen keeps at least a 2,000 vote edge over Kostner. That puts the burden on Kostner to come up with the money to fund a recount, which he would get back only if the recount changed the result of the election.
Of course, the Snohomish County results won’t be available until 7:00 p.m., so I’ll have to wait at least that long to find out if Larsen can hold onto his 2,000+ advantage and avoid a mandatory (machine) recount.
I predict Sanders will lose by at least a few thousand at this point. He is only 11,000 ahead, and he started the day about 18,500 ahead. Not sure how many ballots in all have been counted today, but we started with about 610,000 left to count, and we end with about 490,000 left to count right now. King County has 195,000 of those, which is a disproportionate share — and Wiggins is stronger here.
If Sanders loses, what will probably kill him the most is perceived leniency towards criminal defendants. That has not been a problem for him in the past — voters actually tend to prefer lenient judges. Just look at what happens in district court races — candidates with a criminal defense background more often win out over candidates with a prosecution background.
But the discipline handed out for meeting EX-PARTE with convicted sex offenders at McNeil Island? Okay, civilly committed sex offenders who have served their criminal sentences (and are eligible to vote for Sanders now!). NOT GOOD!
Sanders historically ran very well with conservative voters, and respectably among liberal voters (as in some decent minority share, as opposed to being wiped out). This time around, his percentages in the red counties are far lower than what he has gotten in the past.
How is Hans Zeiger doing? Still losing I hope.
Anti-Girl Scout candidate Hans Zeiger now trails Dawn Morrell by 101 votes, as late ballots continue breaking against him. Goldy can claim credit for this one; without his expose of Zeiger’s craziness, he probably would have won with votes of people who don’t know anything about him.
Nice takedown of Zeiger, Goldy!
@7
As of about an hour ago
Dawn Morrell (Prefers Democratic Party)
23,143 50.11 %
Hans Zeiger (Prefers Republican Party)
23,042 49.89 %
@6 “But the discipline handed out for meeting EX-PARTE with convicted sex offenders at McNeil Island?”
Yeah, I never really understood that. And it isn’t the only shit Sanders has gotten away with. There was an abortion rally controversy, or something like that. He doesn’t seem to understand, or respect, propriety (or subordinates it to politics). Sanders’ libertarian wariness of the police powers of the state is not necessarily a bad thing, and his motive isn’t to coddle criminals but rather to protect the civil liberties of all of us. I’d rather have him on the state supreme court than some fucking Christo-Talibanist who thinks not praying in a public school room should be a hanging offense. But if Sanders gets shoved off the court by Wiggins that might send a message that voters want judges to behave like judges.
The Whatcom County totals move Larsen up to a 3,322 lead now.
Goldy, after the Snohomish totals come in the other mathematically challenged media establishment outlets will call it. Tomorrow’s headline in the Herald will be “Larsen Wins”.
Oh, duh! The poll dancing pun just sunk in. Good one.
3,872 lead for Larsen now.
With Snohomish totals coming in at 7pm..
Larsen: 124,111
Koster: 120,239
Snohomish results are now up at the SOS. Good for Wiggins, very good for Larsen. The late vote in Snohomish must be breaking close to 50/50 because neither the Wiggins or Larsen margins were affected much to speak of. Larsen looks safe and Wiggins has a very good chance with the huge pile of King County ballots remaining to be counted.
Richard Pope,
Sanders is hardly the worst of our Supreme Court Justices. I prefer him to either Jim Johnson or Barbara Madsen. He sticks up for civil liberties most of the time. Johnson only cares about property interests. Madsen is all over the map. On the other hand, Wiggins could be the Robert Utter on the Court who we have not had for quite a long time. A true legal scholar sitting on the Supreme Court. Imagine that.