OLYMPIA — Dino Rossi’s tight primary race with Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire has turned some heads. Looks like it’s also opened plenty of wallets.
Just two days after the Aug. 19 primary, with Rossi nipping at Gregoire’s heels, the national Republican Governors Association set up a dedicated fundraising committee for the Washington governor’s race.
Its first contribution: a cool $1 million.
That shot of cash immediately put the Republican group’s 2008 spending in the contest on par with its counterpart, the Democratic Governors Association, and further reflected the heavy national interest in a governor’s race expected to be the country’s most competitive.
The two national governors’ groups each have donated more than $1.3 million to the race this year, with more money surely on the way as the closely watched rematch enters the stretch run.
A nip-and-tuck re-election run was expected for Gregoire, who survived two recounts and a Republican court challenge to beat Rossi by just 133 votes in 2004.
Nationally, the Democratic and Republican governors’ groups have been raising record amounts of campaign cash for their candidates, with dual hopes of capturing more states and helping stoke turnout for the their respective presidential candidates in November.
Before its recent million-dollar infusion in Washington, the Republican Governors Association had given $370,000 to the state GOP. The Democratic Governors Association likewise donated $310,000 to the state Democratic Party, with another $1 million to Evergreen Progress, a third-party campaign group also supported by labor unions.
Republicans were buoyed by news of the RGA’s spending.
“One thing this means is for Republicans, for once we’re probably not going to get outspent,” said consultant Chris Vance. “It just shows that they’re very serious about winning this race.”
In response, the DGA said its Republican competitors are late to the party. The bulk of the Democratic group’s spending this year came in months ago, and Gregoire remains the DGA’s top priority among 11 governor’s races nationwide this year.
The DGA also helped the state Democrats pay off massive debt from the 2004 election and court challenge, and gave $500,000 to the state party last year in early efforts to prepare for Gregoire’s re-election campaign.
Donors closer to home also apparently liked what they saw from Rossi’s early performance.
State records show that since Aug. 20 — the day after the primary — Rossi’s campaign account has collected more than $134,000. That’s more than four times the size of Gregoire’s haul in the same period, which stood at less than $31,000 as of Thursday.
As the cash rolls in, the continuing trickle of vote tallies in a typically slow, mostly vote-by-mail Washington primary election has shown a tight race.
Gregoire’s early primary-night lead of about 5 percentage points quickly dwindled to about 2 percentage points. Late-arriving ballots have kept Rossi close, and early Thursday he was behind by about 25,000 votes — a difference of about 1.8 percentage points.
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