Deep political divide splits Washington state

RENTON, Wash. -- If this election is about change, as Barack Obama and John McCain say, Democrats here in Washington state are asking voters not to go too far.

An increasingly blue state on the national electoral map, Washington hasn't voted for a Republican for president since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Washington is more evenly split politically when it comes to local politics, and a close rematch in the governor's race is proving that once again.

First-term Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire, 61, who won by 133 votes out of 2.8 million cast, is facing the man she beat in 2004, Republican Dino Rossi, in a tough re-election fight.

"It's hard to be running with a national message of change and still turn around and say, 'We don't want any here,' " says Cathy Allen, a Democratic political consultant in Seattle.

Rossi, a former state senator, has been hitting Gregoire with calls for change in TV ads. Rossi, 49, points out that under Gregoire, the state has seen higher unemployment, an increase in the gasoline tax, rising business failures and a $3.2 billion deficit.

"If this is what Chris Gregoire did in four years, do you really want to see what she can do in eight?" one Rossi ad asks.

Gregoire has been countering with the difference between the two on social issues. A former state attorney general, she points out in ads that Rossi opposes abortion: "In these tough times, don't turn back the clock. Dino Rossi is not the change we need."

The two campaigns are spending more than $20 million, making it impossible to miss their TV ads and creating dismay among some voters.

"I really don't want to vote for either one," says Kristen Ballou, a mother from Kent who supports McCain. "The governor's race is ugly."

Washington's politics reflect a divide between Seattle, overwhelmingly Democratic and liberal, and the area east of the Cascade Mountains, where Republicans tend to do well and at least one poll shows Rossi besting Gregoire 2-1.

Both presidential and governor's races may be decided in this in-between battleground east of Seattle and Lake Washington.