Two weeks after election day there are still two legislative races that remain too close to call, though the Republican has got the edge in both of them: the 41st LD Senate contest between incumbent Democrat Randy Gordon and faux-moderate Steve Litzow, and the the 25th LD House race between incumbent Democrat Dawn Morrell and proto-fascist hate-talker Hans Zeiger.
After today’s results, Litzow leads by 214 and Zeiger leads by only 36… both within the automatic recount margin. But I’d be pleasantly surprised if either Dem pulls this out.
Oh, and by the way, had the ballot deadline been received by election day instead of postmarked by election day, we still wouldn’t know the final result any sooner.
Thanks for the update.
By the way, there’s a typo in the first sentence (“two close to call”).
No doubt, it’s the shit-eating grin that put Litzow over the top.
Goldy,
You totally forgot about the 42nd LD, House Position 2 race in Whatcom County. Incumbent Democrat Kelli Linville is just 177 votes behind Republican challenger Vincent Buys. Percentage wise, it is closer that the Litzow-Gordon race.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Morrell pull it out. There are quite a few elderly Ds who supported her strongly and a very large percentage of the challenged/mismatched signatures came from elderly voters whose palsied hands no longer write a matchable signature.
I wouldn’t worry too much about Zeiger. It’s not like he’d have any sort of power or authority in Olympia. IMHO, we could really use his special kind of entertainment value.
Mary @ 4
I assume there has been an aggressive effort by both sides to deal with the signature rehabilitation issues in the 25th LD. Even so, there are probably still a LOT out there that need proper signature verification, more than enough to make the difference either way.
Morrell may have some hope from the hand recount picking up mismarked ballots on her behalf, especially if her support is stronger among the elderly voters.
Still, 36 votes in an LD is a lot to overcome on a hand recount — if the error is on marking the ballots. Gregoire in 2004 picked up about 250 net votes from mismarked ballots (and another 110 from misplaced ballots), but that was statewide.
Anyway, the Zeiger-Morrell contest should be exciting, and close — much more so than the other two close races.
Two of the problems we seem to be encountering with these tea-party candidates:
(1) Some of the high-profile tea-party candidates across the country (Angle, McDonnell, Paul) draw so much of our attention that some in the lesser races don’t get the attention they should. Zeiger never really should have gotten anywhere near this close to being elected.
(2) After dealing with the likes of the more outlandish tea-partiers, the standard right-of Genghis kahn Republicans seem almost reasonable.
It’s not surprising that Zeiger is so close. His family name carried him a long way (Zeiger Elementary) and the zombies that follow the well connected thought he was pro-public schools. Not so. From Tony Apostle (Superintendent) allowing him to give the commencement speech at PHS, giving him unfettered access to high school seniors in classrooms, and his mother (a substitute teacher) putting his campaign signs in her classroom, there was no doubt his unethical behavior would have an impact.