When I last checked there were about 746,000 voies counted in the governor's race. I bet that's more than half the votes we'll get tonight. Gregoire has 48 percent of those and Rossi has 46 percent.

It's enough for Rossi to issue a statement:

We had a strong showing in the primary tonight. Current returns show we have received over 45 percent of the vote. To put these results into perspective, during the 2004 campaign I received just 34 percent of the vote in the primary and the General Election turned out to be significantly closer.

Fewer than half of the voters who will vote in November cast their ballots in this primary. Independent polls of all voters show this race is a statistical dead heat and I feel confident going into the General Election. I’m happier having 45 percent tonight than the 34 percent we got in the 2004 primary.

What matters is that we placed in the top two and now the General Election begins. We still have a long way to go until November and I will continue to talk about the issues that matter most to the people of Washington state, like addressing the budget deficit, fixing our transportation system, improving education, and keeping our communities safe. ...

In the expectations game, this could be the low-water mark: "What matters is that we placed in the top two ..."