By John Stark
With three rounds of ballot-counting completed, Republican Rob McKenna trails Democrat Jay Inslee by more than 54,000 votes in the race for governor. But the McKenna camp continues to predict victory.
On Election Night, I saw two big-name political consultants on a Seattle television station–one a Democrat, the other a Republican–agreeing that a GOP gubernatorial candidate needs to top 40 percent of the vote in King C9unty to have a chance at getting elected. Dino Rossi was the last Republican to do that: He barely topped 40 percent in King County in 2004, and came within a whisker of defeating Chris Gregoire.
How’s McKenna doing in King County? Not good: At this point his vote total there is shy of 38 percent.
Why do McKenna’s staffers continue to predict victory? They claim that the people who dropped their ballots in the mail at the last minute will vote McKenna by a 2-1 margin. Why do they think that?
If this prediction turns out to be true, these guys are going to look like geniuses.
Nothing wrong with being a “glass half full” kind of person…38%, 40%, those are close numbers.
My guess is they are using models that are similar to those TeamRomney used to predict their landslide victory, and that perhaps those staffers have been in a data-bubble for a bit too long. Could be wrong- the good news is that the votes will be counted and can then stop speculating.
Optimism is great, but realism and candor are good too. I remember Slade Gorton’s quip when he was in a similar position in his ultimately unsuccessful effort to retain his Senate seat vs. Maria Cantwell. He described himself as “cautiously pessimistic.”
But as Bernie says–we won’t need to speculate much longer.
they live in that bubble that doesn’t allow you to even imagine that you could lose…I think they called Mitt shell shocked….they just can’t imagine god would let them lose
As Fox News said, it is math the Republicans do to make them feel better. Congratulations to Governor Inslee, including winning Whatcom County!
2% sounds like nothing until read about the presidential victory and it’s made to sound like the whole country was behind him. Truth is he’ll receive less votes then he did 4 years ago and that’s not taking the population growth into account.
It’s not about some “inside” information. It is just gamesmanship run amok.
Maybe they are talking to Karl Rove or Dick Morris and the band of clowns at Foxnews!!!!
It’s called magical thinking. If you say it often enough, you’ll start to believe it. Say it even more and you get mad at anyone who doesn’t support your belief.
This election is so drawn out with our new system of mail-in ballots. I am still hopeful that the numbers for McKenna will play out. Can more than 60% of the population in King County really be that dumb when the rest of the state seems to see the opportunity to bring change to Olympia?
Rob McKenna concedes the race.6:30 pm.
Bubble. Burst. The answer? Don’t live in one.