Washington, Wyoming hold state primaries

OLYMPIA, Wash. | Washington state voters cast ballots Tuesday in a primary that would almost certainly set up the nation’s most competitive governor’s race with a reprise of the 2004 cliffhanger that was decided by 133 votes.

Voters in Wyoming chose House and Senate nominees, including those who will fight to serve the remaining term of Republican Sen. Craig Thomas, who died of leukemia last summer.

In Washington, Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire and her Republican opponent, Dino Rossi, were expected to advance easily to the general election. But the primary was being closely watched because it offered a potential preview of the fall contest due to the state’s new primary system, which allows people to skip back and forth across party lines.

The new primary system forces all candidates onto a single ballot. The top two vote-getters then face off in November regardless of party.

Neither campaign was publicly putting much weight in the primary results. But in an e-mail to supporters, Mr. Rossi said that if Mrs. Gregoire fails to win the primary by a “commanding” margin, “it will be the beginning of the end of her campaign.”

For nearly 70 years, Washington state used a “blanket” primary system in which voters chose their favorites from any party, and the top Democratic, Republican and third-party vote-getters advanced to the general election.

But that system was struck down by a federal appeals court in 2003, three years after the Supreme Court invalidated a similar system in California because it infringed on the rights of parties to pick their nominees.

The “top two” primary system was passed by initiative in 2004. It is a winnowing process rather than a nominating election - raising the possibility that two candidates from the same party could be forced to compete in the general election.

The system was never used before Tuesday’s primary because the parties immediately challenged it in court. The Supreme Court upheld the system earlier this year.

In Wyoming, primary voters choose nominees for two Republican-dominated Senate seats and for the state’s soon-to-be vacant House seat.

The incumbent Republican senators - Michael B. Enzi and John Barrasso - were unopposed in the Republican primary. Both have raised nearly $2 million, considerably more than their potential Democratic rivals.

Mr. Barrasso, a doctor and former state legislator, was appointed to the Senate after Mr. Thomas’ death in June 2007. Mr. Enzi is an accountant and former mayor of Gillette, Wyo.

In the race to challenge Mr. Barrasso, Democrats selected from two candidates - defense attorney Nick Carter and Casper city councilman Keith Goodenough.

The winner in the general election will fill the remaining four years of Mr. Thomas’ term.

Vying to challenge Mr. Enzi were two Democrats: Chris Rothfuss, an instructor at the University of Wyoming, and Al Hamburg, a retired house painter.