In state races, county bucks statewide trend
Thursday, November 6, 2008 6:50 PM PST
By Tony Lystra
Printable version
E-mail this articleFollowing Gov. Chris Gregoire¹s victory in Tuesday’s election, the chairman of the Cowlitz County Republican Party said a small army of volunteers delivered Cowlitz County to Republican challenger Dino Rossi, but the race had clearly fallen short statewide.
“We had a huge grassroots effort here in Cowlitz County.” chairman Keath Huff said. As many as 110 local Rossi volunteers “made tens of thousands of phone calls, knocked on doors, got information out,” he said.
Voters here favored Rossi by a slim margin, with 49 percent voting for Gregoire and 51 percent going to Rossi.
It was a notable variance from the statewide results, in which 54 percent voted for Gregoire and 46 percent favored Rossi.
Some observers speculated Wednesday that Gregoire’s relatively poor showing in Cowlitz County may have been brought on by lackluster campaigning here or, perhaps, the impression that she favors urban areas and shuns rural communities.
“Maybe the thing about Puget Sound running the state rings true to some voters,” Democratic County Commissioner George Raiter said.
Cowlitz County Democratic Party Chairman Butch Eldridge said Gregoire didn’t pay much heed to Cowlitz County during her first term, let alone this year’s campaign. He noted that she helped establish the Cameron Glass plant in Kalama, but “somehow that credit didn’t get back to her.”
“She didn’t give Cowlitz County as much attention as she should have,” Eldridge said.
Local Republicans had tried to leverage those perceptions.
For example, Huff, the Republican chairman, said the local Rossi campaign had argued that local gas tax dollars were being channeled to the Puget Sound area and that local transportation projects, such as the Longview Wye, are being ignored.
Rossi, he said, had also been helped by what he called the county’s “center-right” politics.
While Cowlitz County voters are known to favor Democrats, Huff said, Rossi’s message “kind of transcended party politics and was just talking about the issues.
“And when we talked about the issues,” he said, “people liked Dino Rossi.”
Cowlitz County voters differed from their statewide counterparts in several marquee races. Here is a look at how the county and statewide vote compare so far in several races.
President Cowlitz County State
Barack Obama 57.9% 57.6%
John McCain 39.4% 40.7%
Ralph Nader 1.7% 0.9%
Governor Cowlitz County State
Chris Gregoire (D) 48.8% 53.7%
Dino Rossi (R) 51% 46.3%
Secretary of State Cowlitz County State
Sam Reed (R) 50.5 % 58%
Jason Osgood (D) 49.3% 42.1%
Attorney General Cowlitz County State
Rob McKenna (R) 47.1% 58.7%
John Ladenburg (D) 52.6 % 41.4%
Commissioner of Public Lands Cowlitz County State
Doug Sutherland (R) 47.7% 49.3%
Peter J. Goldmark (D) 52.6% 50.7%
Superintendent of Public Instruction Cowlitz County State
Terry Bergeson (NP) 56.6% 49%
Randy Dorn (NP) 42.8% 51%
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