Four years after the closest governor’s race in Washington history, Chris Gregoire was poised to win re-election over rival Dino Rossi, her repeat challenger from the 2004 contest.

Early returns Tuesday night showed Gregoire with a narrow lead statewide and in several Western Washington counties. Rossi, who did not concede, was leading in all of Eastern Washington except Spokane County, which appeared to be a toss-up.

Pierce County, a key battleground, was slow to report results because of the county’s experiment with a new voting method for local races, but the early Pierce County returns heavily favored Gregoire.

Gregoire, 61, spoke triumphantly to her supporters late Tuesday, noting that several national media outlets called the race in her favor.

“Yes!” Gregoire said at the start of a speech that made numerous references to Sen. Barack Obama’s historic victory in the presidential election.

“I think the message tonight is that when Barack Obama can get elected president, and the kid of a single mom and short-order cook can be elected governor, every one of our children can do anything and everything they want to do,” Gregoire said.

Rossi, 49, called upon his supporters to help monitor the election process to “make sure we don’t have a repeat of the nonsense that took place in 2004.” Lori Sotelo, chairwoman of the King County Republicans, also issued a call for volunteers to watch over King County elections officials in Renton.

“Once again, Dino will be fighting long after election night,” Sotelo said in an e-mail. “Four years ago, Democrat operatives stole the election.”

In 2004, Rossi initially appeared to win, but Gregoire ultimately prevailed by 133 votes out of 2.8 million following two re-counts and a court challenge.

In a speech to his supporters that sounded at times like a victory speech, Rossi touched on many of the themes from his stump speech: education, transportation, the state budget.

He said he wanted to “bring back government that spends efficiently on critical needs without burdening business with higher taxes.”

“We can be proud of this,” Rossi said. “Win, lose or draw, we have shaken Olympia to its core.”

His campaign spokeswoman issued a statement later saying it was too soon to know the winner. Fewer than 50 percent of the ballots were counted statewide, and in 2004 and this year’s August primary, the later votes “trended heavily toward Dino Rossi,” Jill Strait said.

“We’ll know by the end of the week what’s happening,” Rossi said in a television interview.

Rossi, a former state senator from Sammamish, formally launched his second bid for governor more than a year ago in October 2007. But the announcement was no surprise – most observers expected him to run again and some said he was running for five years.

Since then, Gregoire and Rossi engaged in an expensive and brutal campaign that included five often-testy debates, and surrogates on both sides launching one negative attack ad after another.

More than $40 million has been spent on the race between the two campaigns and independent groups, according to the state Public Disclosure Commission.

Rossi made the state budget – and a projected $3.2 billion deficit by 2011 – a highlight of his campaign. He accused Gregoire of reckless spending, and told voters that Gregoire would raise taxes to address the looming shortfall. He also reminded voters that he played a major role in balancing the state budget once before when he was chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

Gregoire denied she would raise taxes and emphasized that Washington is relatively well-off financially compared with other states. She blamed President Bush for the nation’s economic troubles and tried to link the Republican Rossi to the unpopular Republican president.

In the August “top two” primary, Gregoire finished ahead of Rossi by 2 percentage points, and numerous polls since then showed Gregoire either with a slim lead or locked in a dead heat.

Gregoire had some significant advantages: Washington has not elected a Republican governor since John Spellman in 1980, and the state voted overwhelmingly for Democratic Sen. Obama in the presidential race.

But Rossi, who distanced himself from the Republican Party by avoiding its national convention and identifying himself on the ballot by the party nickname GOP, was counting on Obama voters crossing party lines in the governor’s race.

Speaking in Seattle late Tuesday, Gregoire was emotional as she asked her crowd to indulge her while she recognized her family. She acknowledged that tough times were ahead, and asked for the public’s support to get through them. Gregoire thanked Rossi for his candidacy, and said it was “time for us to come together as one great state.”

“Imagine what we can accomplish,” she said, “with Barack Obama as president.”

Jason Hagey: 253-597-8542

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