Mike McGavick just gave a short speech to supporters in his Seattle campaign headquarters. He said that when he began the campaign he was "relatively unknown," but his certain win tonight shows he dominates "our own party." (He didn't mention which party that was in his speech.)

He criticized Cantwell and the Democrats for trying to tie him to President Bush, though. "Frankly if she wanted to run against George Bush she missed it by two years," he said.

McGavick brought up his favorite campaign theme of civility several times. But the speech seemed to focus as much on issues. He said, "I think the differences in this election are profound." He said he'd vote to spend less than Maria Cantwell, but cut more taxes than her. Along with Social Security, those are what McGavick called the big differences between him and Cantwell.

He said there are smaller differences, too. He repeated one of his very first campaign positions, criticizing Cantwell for voting to retain Social Security benefits for illegal aliens who later become citizens. He said he was unhappy that his recent call to drug test some welfare recipients was "met with a wave of derision" from the Cantwell campaign.

In the past McGavick has said that he and Cantwell hold almost identical positions on Iraq. But tonight he talked about Cantwell's position as unclear, mushy. When Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was in town, McGavick said that all the Senate debate over resolutions calling for troop withdrawal were largely without substance. But tonight he said "a politically driven timetable" is an effort to gain votes, not end the war. He then said he wasn't suggesting that was Cantwell's position.

On civility, he said Cantwell and the Democrats — he uses the GOP-approved appellation "Democrat Party" — are running a "good cop/bad cop" campaign where Cantwell sticks to the high road but party operatives take the hard shots. He's right about that, though his own party does much the same thing.

MORE: Dino Rossi, the GOP gubernatorial candidate in 2004, was at McGavick's headquarters. He said he had just called Sen. Tim Sheldon to offer his congratulations. Sheldon, a renegade Democrat who backed Rossi for governor, faced a well-financed primary opponent in Kyle Taylor Lucas. "Now he's bulletproof," Rossi said of Sheldon.

UPDATE: After getting a decent write up in the New York Times today, McGavick slips in the eyes of the paper of record:

In Washington state, Sen. Maria Cantwell won the Democratic primary for Senate, and Mike McGavick, a former insurance salesman, won the Republican Senate primary, both by large margins, The Associated Press reported.

He was an insurance company CEO, of course, and I'm pretty sure he was never peddling policies.

UPDATE: Kelly Steele, the Democratic Party spokesman who has taken the most shots at McGavick, said Cantwell has been "doing her job full-time in Washington, D.C." so the party has focused on McGavick.

They did a little of that tonight. Cantwell issued a statement tonight. It makes no mention of McGavick and says, in part:

"I will continue to run a true, issues based campaign. I will continue to fight to make sure Social Security remains a safety net for America's seniors. We need to change the course in Iraq so our troops can start coming home this year. We need to make health care and prescription drugs affordable for everyone in Washington state, especially our seniors. We need to lower energy costs so working families aren't paying for oil company record profits. "

The party issued a press release criticizing McGavick for his plan to fly to D.C. for fundraisers. The release refers to McGavick as, "The former Slade Gorton chief-of-staff turned high-priced insurance industry lobbyist turned wealthy insurance CEO turned Republican US Senate candidate."

Democrats will hold a press conference in the morning with Governor Chris Gregoire, House Speaker Frank Chopp, party chairman Dwight Pelz and labor council president Rick Bender.