Gregoire rallies local support among voters

In the final stretch before Tuesday’s primary election, Gov. Chris Gregoire is making the rounds in Pierce County, urging people to send in their ballots.

Gregoire spoke to Democrats in Tacoma on Saturday before heading to Puyallup Farmer’s Market on Sunday morning. She is back in Tacoma today visiting a construction site at Tacoma General Hospital while her opponent, Republican Dino Rossi, continues to campaign in Eastern Washington.

In weekend speeches before her Democratic supporters, Gregoire focused on increasing voter turnout for the primary, which she said doesn’t have the draw of a presidential election.

Getting people to pay attention now is key before the presidential campaign begins to dominate voter interest, she said. Even now, candidates face a lot of competition for voters’ attention.

“They’re looking to see if Michael Phelps gets his eighth medal at the Olympics,” Gregoire said. “They’re getting their kids ready to go back to school. This is a difficult time for people to focus on voting.”

With the state’s new top-two primary system up and running Tuesday, the primary will give Gregoire and return challenger Rossi a clear snapshot of how they stack up in advance of the November election.

Voters for the first time since 2003 can pick their favorite candidate regardless of party lines, pitting Rossi and Gregoire against one another on the primary ballot three months before the candidates’ November showdown.

Rossi’s campaign isn’t putting much stock in the primary and already expects to lose, spokeswoman Jill Strait said Sunday, adding that a Republican candidate for governor hasn’t won a primary in Washington since 1972. Rossi spent the weekend campaigning in Moses Lake and the Tri-Cities, and is in Spokane today.

“Our focus continues to be on the general election,” Strait said.

Meanwhile, Gregoire is hoping a good showing Tuesday will build momentum for November and help avoid a repeat of her race against Rossi in 2004, which included two recounts, a court challenge and a thin 133-vote victory. She said she wants this year’s race called at 8:10 p.m. on election night, with a landslide victory and no recounts.

In Pierce County, Gregoire lost to Rossi by four percentage points in 2004.

“No governor in America understands better than I do that every vote counts,” Gregoire told a crowd of more than 80 partisans who gathered Saturday at the IBEW Hall on South 36th Street in Tacoma.

Gregoire did not mention Rossi by name, but spent much of her time in Tacoma and Puyallup countering claims that he makes in television ads on issues ranging from the state budget to gas taxes.

She suggested that Rossi must be suffering from memory loss because of his TV attacks that blast her for raising the state’s gas tax. Rossi voted for a higher gas tax in 2003 when he was in the state Senate, she said, and voters agreed to raise the gas tax in 2005.

Some projects done with that tax money, including the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge, have “gotten people’s lives back,” Gregoire said.

“Some people spend two hours less per day on the road,” Gregoire said. “These are not small-potatoes projects.”

Pierce County Auditor Pat McCarthy, who is running for Pierce County Executive this fall, said the county’s turnout at the primary is expected to be low – 43 to 45 percent instead of the 46 percent projected statewide.

McCarthy said that the top-two primary could decide many local races in favor of one party or another, since two candidates from the same party could advance if they receive enough votes.

“We tend to be a county that runs more Democrat than Republican, but that’s not always the case,” McCarthy said. “That’s why it’s going to be critical that people come out and cast those ballots sitting on their kitchen table.”

Jason Hagey: 253-597-8542