Some other ranked choice voting results from Friday night. Remember, these are preliminary. No candidate will be eliminated until every vote is counted.

• Republican Joyce McDonald seems poised to win the County Council District 2 seat over two Democrats, Al Rose and Carolyn Merrival. The latest tally shows McDonald winning 54 percent to 46 percent over Rose, thanks to second-place votes from some Merrival supporters.

• The nonpartisan assessor-treasurer’s race remains too close to call. Friday’s tally shows Dale Washam edging Barbara Gelman by a margin of 51 percent to 49 percent. But with six candidates for this office, the outcome remains unpredictable.

• In County Council District 3, incumbent Republican Roger Bush is pulling away from Democrat Bruce Lachney. Bush leads by a margin of 51 percent to 48 percent.

If Bush and McDonald are both elected to the council, Republicans would have five seats on the seven-member council. That would give the party a “supermajority” able to overcome the veto of the county executive.

The race to be the next Pierce County executive tightened tonight.

County Auditor Pat McCarthy, one of four candidates for the executive's post, just ran the ranked-choice algorithm for the first time since election night and now holds a 4-point lead over Republican County Councilman Shawn Bunney.

She had a 10-point lead over Bunney in the earlier RCV results posted Tuesday night.

This race is still too close to call, which means the wait continues. McCarthy doesn't plan to run the RCV program again until next Friday.

RCV primer: Voters could rank up to three candidates in order of preference. The last-place candidate is eliminated and the second and/or third choices from ballots for that candidate are distributed. The process continues until someone has more than 50 percent of the vote.

As was the case on Tuesday, independent Mike Lonergan was in last place and was the first to be eliminated. McCarthy and Bunney benefited almost equally from his second- and third-choice ballots. That represents an improvement for Bunney, as McCarthy got more of Lonergan's votes in the Tuesday count.

In the second round, Democrat Calvin Goings was eliminated and, again, the vast majority of his supporters selected McCarthy as their next choice.

However, Bunney has widened his lead in the first-choice ballots, and he boosted his proportion of the Lonergan and Goings ballots.

The result: If the election were to end today, McCarthy would defeat Bunney 52 percent to 48 percent (89,762 to 83,067).

But the election isn't ending today. No one has actually been eliminated. This is a snapshot of the ballot counting so far. McCarthy estimates there are still 106,000 ballots to count.

Republican U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert has survived his rematch with Democrat Darcy Burner.

The Associated Press just issued a bulletin calling the race. With the latest totals today, Reichert has extended his lead to nearly 8,000 votes.

Reichert is beating Burner by 2,000 votes in South King County and by nearly 6,500 votes in East Pierce County.

This was the state's only competitive congressional race. Other incumbents - including Norm Dicks of Belfair, Adam Smith of Tacoma and Brian Baird of Vancouver - cruised to re-election.

Update at 8:55 p.m.: Burner has conceded.

“It is likely at this point that Congressman Reichert has won re-election, and while we will certainly ensure that every valid vote is counted, we accept the decision of the voters.

“I would like to thank the thousands of people who put so much time and effort into the campaign, as well as the countless thousands more who went beyond voting to actively participate in our democratic process this year. The election of Barack Obama as our new President will ensure that the change to the direction of our country called for in this campaign is realized in the new year.”

The race between incumbent Rep. John Ahern, R-Spokane, and Democratic challenger John Driscoll is only 87 votes apart, within the 0.5 percent margin for an automatic recount.

In rural Spokane's 6th District, it's Ahern 33,248 to Driscoll's 33,335, a margin of 0.14 percent.

In the 10th Legislative District (Island, Skagit, Snohomish counties) incumbent Republican Rep. Norma Smith is trailing Democrat Tim Knue 28,780 to 28,854. That's a 74-vote differnce and a margin of only 0.12 percent.

Pierce County Auditor Pat McCarthy reports we can expect new results from the county’s ranked choice voting races about 9 p.m.

The office will release traditional results from today’s counting at 7 p.m. Those results will show the latest tallies for state and federal races and local ballot measures. They’ll also show a tally of first-place votes in RCV races.

After those results are released, the office will begin running the computer software that tabulates ranked choice voting ballots. It will be the first tally of RCV results since election night. We won’t get another glimpse until next Friday.

Check back later tonight and we’ll have the updated results on Political Buzz.

That's the 0.5 percent increase in the sales tax for most of Pierce, King and Snohomish counties that is authorized in Proposition 1. That measure is passing overall by a 58-42 margin.

Here is a link to the state Department of Revenue flyer that shows what the sales tax rate is today in various Pierce County communities.

And here is a table that DOR's Mike Gowrylow put together for us. I know parts of it are confusing. (There are different tax rates in the "Unincorporated" areas.) But basically, if you see a ".088" that means the tax rate today is 8.8 percent and in those areas it will rise to 9.3 percent next spring.

PIERCE COUNTY

Unincorp. Areas..............082
Unincorp. Areas Non-RTA......078
Unincorp. P.T.B.A............088
Unincorp. P.T.B.A. Non-RTA...084
Unincorp. P.T.B.A.HBZ........084
Auburn/Pierce................088
Bonney Lake..................088
Bonney Lake Non-RTA..........084
Buckley......................084
Carbonado....................078
DuPont.......................088
Eatonville...................078
Edgewood.....................088
Fife.........................088
Fircrest.....................088
Gig Harbor...................084
Gig Harbor HBZ...............084
Lakewood.....................088
Milton/Pierce................088
Orting.......................088
Pacific/Pierce...............088
Puyallup.....................088
Roy..........................078
Ruston.......................088
South Prairie................078
Steilacoom...................088
Sumner.......................088
Tacoma.......................088
University Place.............088
Wilkeson.....................078

U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert has increased his lead over Democrat Darcy Burner in King County, according to the latest count.

He now leads Burner by 1,440 votes in King County. When Burner challenged him in 2006, he won there by only 304 votes.

The 8th Congressional District includes East King County and East Pierce County.

More numbers from the Pierce County portion of the district won't be available until 7 p.m. today. As of 7:20 p.m. Thursday, Reichert led there by 4,963 votes.

A total of 261,739 votes have been counted so far. During the 2004 presidential race, 331,099 voters cast ballots in the 8th District.

UPDATE:
2:38 p.m.
KING COUNTY
Reichert: 112,164 votes, 50.32%
Burner: 110,724 votes, 49.68%

ENTIRE DISTRICT
Reichert: 134,071 votes, 51.22%
Burner: 127,668 votes, 48.78%

Kelly Evans, Gov. Chris Gregoire's campaign manager, sent a memorandum out today to some of the folks who worked on Gregoire's reelection campaign.

She's mostly telling people how she and her staff did it. The partnership with Obama campaign and the state Democratic party. And anticipating those attack ads about sex offenders, ready with counter-attacks within 24 hours, and outsmarting Dino Rossi and the BIAW at every turn, etc.

Don't get me wrong: Hers was a masterful campaign. But the expression that comes to mind after reading Evans' memo is, "Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back," or something like that.

We in the media did, indeed, think the election would be closer than it was. But I think Associated Press reporter Curt Woodward summed up the Obama Effect best. "Obama helped Gregoire win this Tuesday (Nov. 4) instead of next Tuesday (Nov. 11)," Woodward said yesterday.

Hindsight is 20-20. So, Evans' memorandum would have been much more impressive if it had been dated Nov. 3 -- not Nov. 7.

November 7, 2008
From: Kelly Evans, Campaign Manger
RE: Governor Gregoire’s decisive win

Although ballots continue to be counted, our current eight point lead is likely to expand in the coming days as King, Snohomish and Pierce counties tally hundreds of thousands of ballots.

While we watch our lead expand, I wanted to take a moment to put this decisive win into perspective.

=> Read more!

Democrat Darcy Burner has lost the lead she's held in King County since election night, according to the latest election returns.

Incumbent U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert now leads in the King County portion of the 8th Congressional District, which includes Seattle's East Side suburbs. Burner formerly held a 1 point lead there, while Reichert has maintained a double-digit lead in the East Pierce County part of the district.

10:30 p.m. Thursday:

KING COUNTY
Reichert: 101,678 votes, 50.09%
Burner: 101,309 votes, 49.91%

PIERCE COUNTY
Reichert: 21,907 votes, 56.39%
Burner: 16,944 votes, 43.61%

So far, the county trends this year look similar to what happened when Burner took on Reichert in 2006.

That year, she received only 304 fewer votes than Reichert out of more than 200,000 cast in King County, but the Pierce County part of the district favored Reichert by 7,000 votes.

Overall, Reichert is now leading Burner by 2 percentage points.

And, of course, the good senator from the 28th District is still campaigning against the media, as you can see in the e-mail that was forwarded to me by a member of his "kitchen cabinet."

"Now you and I can concentrate on the real job, which how do we deal with the huge state budget deficit. Imagine a budget shortfall of $4 billion out of the total $33 billion budget! You know that I will not vote to raise your taxes, but there are lots of people in the legislature who will. I'm going to need your council and suggestions, more than ever, during the months leading up to and during the legislative session. This session will be brutal and fast. You know the media won't tell you many of real stories, so if you have freinds who would like to get my weekly legislative updates, ask them to join. They too can be part of the Kitchen Cabinet by e-mailing me, if they live in the district."

----- Original Message -----
From: Mike Carrell
To: Mike Carrell
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 9:59 AM
Subject: Re: Election Day

Dear Kitchen Cabinet,

=> Read more!

Pierce County Councilman Roger Bush has come back from his 200-vote election-night deficit and now holds a 640-vote lead over Democratic challenger Bruce Lachney.

If Republican Joyce McDonald holds on and wins the seat being vacated by Democrat Calvin Goings - we'll get new ranked-choice voting results tonight - then Dick Muri points out in a comment on a different post that Republicans will expand their council majority from a 4-3 split to a 5-2 split.

Muri also notes that this council has a bipartisan track record. In fact, Democrats lead two of the six committees, though Republicans control the key panel that determines what legislation comes to the full council for votes.

I should have checked my e-mail before I posted that update at 5:30 this morning. Kim Abel sent out an e-mail last night, conceding victory to Republican Jan Angel.

Hello Newshounds,

This evening's update continues to show a trend that would be tough to overcome in the 26th Legislative District, Position 1 race.

This has been an extraordinary election, and I am grateful to all those who supported me. But with such a close outcome, everyone in the 26th can take heart in the fact that education, job creation and care of the community came up as the top issues. Now all of us should work together to find solutions, especially in the face of tight budgets.

I wish Jan the very best as she moves to represent our district in Olympia.

I can be reached tomorrow anytime after 11 a.m.

Sincerely,
Kim Abel

Republican U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert now has a two-point lead over Democrat Darcy Burner in the race to represent Washington's 8th Congressional District.

Early returns showed Burner in the lead, but Reichert came out ahead in later rounds of counts on election night and has been stretching his lead ever since.

Reichert: 123,585 votes, 51.10%
Burner: 118,253 votes, 48.90%

We were looking at the forest instead of the trees so we missed this glaring fact from Tuesday's election: Tim Eyman's Initiative 985 failed in every county in the state - except Pierce County.

That makes for a striking map on the Secretary of State's elections page. It is passing in Pierce with 51.5 percent yes. No other county in the state gave it even 45 percent yes and it is losing statewide 60-40.

Reader John Seidel of Graham called last week with his prediction. He thought our headline ("I- 985 may kill red-light cameras") would guarantee that it would pass. Seidel thinks motorists hate red light cameras and would do anything to kill them.

I have no better explanation and would love to hear your theories on this one.

Tacoma’s Proposition 1, which would repeal term limits, is failing. The no votes were leading by 543 in the last count.

Pierce County is scheduled to release new numbers at 7 p.m. today.

Most of the dust has settled in Washington's legislative races and Democrats are on the verge of losing only two seats overall, both of them in Pierce County.

That's not bad, in one respect. That will leave them with hefty majorities, 62-36 in the House and 31-18 in the Senate. But it's ironic in light of the Obama Democratic tidal wave that helped out so many other Democrats.

Republicans are poised to pick up the seat of retiring Rep. Pat Lantz, D-Gig Harbor. Kitsap County Commissioner Jan Angel, a Republican, is comfortably ahead of former Port Orchard Mayor Kim Abel, a Democrat.

Sen. Marilyn Rasmussen, D-Eatonville, is only about 300 votes behind Republican Randi Becker, but Rasmussen is losing more ground with each additional vote count from the Pierce County portion of the 2nd District. So the trend is not good for the longtime incumbent.

Sen. Don Benton, R-Vancouver, got a scare from Democrat David Carrier in the 17th District, but now has an 1,160-vote lead with nearly 55,000 votes counted.

Republicans are likely to hold Rep. Joyce McDonald's seat in the 25th District. Bruce Dammeier is ahead of Democrat Rob Cerqui.