Washington State Voters Voted: "Somehow, voters find enough interest to take part"

Washington - 4102 of 7150 Precincts Reporting - 57%

Name Party Votes Vote % Obama , Barack Dem 259,323 50% Clinton , Hillary Dem 243,306 47%

President - GOP Primary

Washington - 4102 of 7150 Precincts Reporting - 57%

	Name	Party	Votes	Vote %
	McCain , John	GOP	187,051	49%
	Huckabee , Mike	GOP	82,253	22%

Seattle P-I:

Voting in Tuesday's presidential primary anticlimax, Washingtonians tightened Sen. John McCain's grip on the Republican nomination and appeared in initial returns to give Sen. Barack Obama a meaningless encore to his previous Democratic caucus win.

After narrowly favoring McCain over Mike Huckabee in the state's precinct caucuses on Feb. 9, GOP voters who turned out in much greater numbers for the primary overwhelmingly chose McCain, the party's presumptive nominee. However, Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, is plodding on despite his nearly nil prospects.

In the Democratic primary, which doesn't count toward the allocation of nominating convention delegates, Obama was leading Sen. Hillary Clinton by a narrower margin than he did in the party's Feb. 9 precinct caucuses. But ballots yet to be counted are likely to widen the gap.

Early returns showed McCain beating Huckabee by a more than 2-1 ratio statewide and leading in all of the state's 39 counties. In fact, Huckabee was only barely ahead of Mitt Romney even though the former Massachusetts governor dropped out of the race nearly two weeks ago and has endorsed McCain.

Chris Fidler, a top McCain campaign organizer in the state, termed his candidate's statewide victory "a comprehensive win" here and said McCain headquarters were delighted. "They were congratulating us and we were congratulating them, an exchange of 'atta-boys,' " he said.

The McCain camp continued making nice to Huckabee, hoping not to alienate his supporters and to persuade them and other conservatives skeptical about McCain to unite behind the Arizonan. "I think Gov. Huckabee's supporters should be commended for their efforts, and we will be, of course, working to reach out to them," Fidler said.

Republicans are allotting 18 of their 37 elected national convention delegates through the caucuses and 19 through the primary. Of the latter, 10 are allocated in proportion to the statewide primary vote, and one in each of the state's nine congressional districts goes to the winner of each district-wide vote.

Any Republican candidate whose share of the total vote exceeds 20 percent is entitled to a proportionate number of delegates, and Romney's share in partial returns was exceeding 20 percent. Thus, said state GOP Chairman Luke Esser, the former candidate could earn "at least two delegates of the 10 allocated to statewide delegates."

In fact, partial returns showed Romney leading Huckabee in Benton and Franklin counties in the Tri-Cities area, where a large number of voters share Romney's Mormon faith, and in Yakima County.

Early returns Tuesday night showed Obama with a thin lead over Clinton, with initial King County results strongly favoring the Illinois senator. The Democratic contest, however, was a mere straw poll coming 10 days after the Democrats' record-turnout caucuses, in which Obama beat the former first lady by a more than 2-1 ratio.

The Democrats are choosing all 78 of their elected delegates proportionately through the caucuses, none in the primary.

Obama's share of the vote is likely to grow as more ballots are counted later in the week. A major reason is that King County tabulated a smaller percentage of its ballots than most counties did Tuesday night.

Because county offices were closed Monday for the Presidents Day holiday, county elections officials were unable to use the day before the primary to process absentee ballots from the weekend mail in preparation for counting them Tuesday. So some counties counted only those ballots that had arrived in the mail by last Friday.

Because the Democratic primary returns don't count, Obama and Clinton campaigned in Washington the day before the caucuses but didn't return afterward. And while McCain likewise made a swing through Seattle just before the caucuses, and Huckabee sent his wife, Janet, to campaign here, neither bothered with a post-caucus visit.

Moreover, Washington's primary was little more than an afterthought on the same night as Wisconsin's primary, which had more delegates at stake, and which Obama and McCain both won decisively. Obama was also poised to win Hawaii's Democratic caucuses Tuesday.

Clinton has complained that caucuses are difficult for many of her working-class and elderly supporters to attend and don't draw as broad a Democratic electorate as primaries. In caucus states, the Obama campaign's organizational strength and appeal to independent and first-time voters have widened his delegate lead over the New York senator.

Most of her wins have been in primaries -- although not in Wisconsin Tuesday -- and the narrowness of the outcome, at least in early returns, suggested that Washington's primary voters were more favorably disposed toward her than its caucusgoers.

Some analysts have suggested, though, that after Obama trounced Clinton in the caucuses, her supporters may have had more motivation than Obama's to produce a better if only symbolic showing in the primary.

Despite its limited relevance, this state's primary drew far more voters, as always, than did the caucuses 10 days earlier.

State Democratic Chairman Dwight Pelz has scorned the primary as a pointless, $9.7 million exercise, but Secretary of State Sam Reed, a staunch defender of the primary, has pointed out that the election would draw a much larger and more diverse cross-section of the electorate. Some voters don't like debating their presidential preferences in public at the caucuses.

Reed predicted that 47 percent of Washington's 3.3 million voters, or about 1.55 million, would participate Tuesday. With the state's Democratic tilt and the only hot race on the Democratic side, more voters chose Democratic ballots than Republican ballots.

"On the Democratic side, when you have 7 or 8 percent of the voters going to the caucuses, Obama really boomed through," Reed said, "but now, with a much larger cross section of the electorate (voting in the primary, Clinton), is doing very well."

"Some of the leaders of the Democratic Party who are Clinton supporters may be having second thoughts" about ignoring the primary results, said Reed, a Republican.

The Democrats' caucuses had 244,000 participants, smashing the party's previous record of 100,000 in 2004. The Republican caucuses are thought to have attracted far fewer although state GOP spokesman Patrick Bell said Tuesday that the party still hasn't been able to come up with a turnout figure.

In the primary, much of the voters' passion was stirred not by the candidates but by the requirement that every voter sign an oath declaring himself or herself a Republican or a Democrat. Washington is one of few states that doesn't require voter registration by party, and its voters are notoriously hostile to being required to identify with one party or another.

Howie P.S. It may be a "meaningless encore," but the results will probably dampen any pressure on the Clinton superdelegates here to switch to Obama. Joel Connelly says "McCain held to different standard by media." I think he means that McCain slapped a "Straight Talk Express" sign on his bus and the press immediately started reporting that he was a real "straight-talker."

Barack Obama