Reichert edges ahead

Republican U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert edged into the lead over his Democratic challenger, Darcy Burner, and stayed ahead this afternoon as Pierce and King counties continued to count votes in the 8th Congressional District.

Burner held a wide lead over Reichert in early absentee votes, but as more poll votes were counted, the advantage shifted. Reichert was ahead by 514 votes this afternoon.

Burner still led in King County by about 2,200 votes, but, as expected, Reichert held a formidable lead in Pierce County.

King County mailed out 244,000 absentee ballots in the 8th District, and has counted about 100,000. That means elections workers may be less than halfway done with the count in the rematch between the two candidates.

The 8th includes parts of Eastern King and Pierce counties. Both candidates said Wednesday they were feeling confident, but didn't expect to know who the winner was anytime soon.

No Democrat has been elected since the district was formed in the 1980s, but it is growing increasingly liberal and voted for Democrats for president in 2004 and 2000.

While vote-counters in King and Pierce counties finished counting poll votes and returned to feeding stacks of absentee ballots through tabulating machines, both sides tried to make sense of a dramatic shift in the results Tuesday night.

The first batch of early absentee ballots showed Burner with a comfortable lead. The numbers showed her just a few hundred votes behind Reichert in the first Pierce County results. Reichert was expected to do well in Pierce County, where voters have favored him by relatively large margins in past elections.

Among 39,000 absentee ballots counted Tuesday night, Burner was leading with 57 percent of the vote.

Throughout the night Tuesday, Burner was cautious in her optimism, even when early results showed her up by as much as 10 percentage points.

"We know that it will be a couple of days before we really know where the race is going," said Jaime Smith, a spokeswoman for the Burner campaign.

Reichert said he was not anxious and that early returns were similar in 2006.

"I feel very, very confident we're going to hold this district," he said.

Burner came within 3 percentage points of beating Reichert in the candidates' first contest two years ago. Reichert had a small lead last night in Pierce County, where voters comprise about 20 percent of the 8th District. In 2006, Reichert won King County by about 300 votes and Pierce County by 7,000.

Reichert said he was frustrated by the slow vote counts in King and Pierce counties. He watched many of his former Republican colleagues around the country lose seats to Democrats. But he said voters think of him as an independent.

"We were here in this position early in the race last time and slowly gained ground as time went on," he said Tuesday night. "I fully anticipate winning King County again as we did last time, and of course having great support from voters in Pierce County."

In early morning returns, Burner's King County lead narrowed to about 1,370 of more than 110,000 votes. In Pierce County, Reichert's lead widened to 2,500 votes with more than 28,000 votes counted.

Each campaign spent millions this year, much of it on television advertising in the last few weeks before Election Day. Burner raised $3.7 million. Reichert raised $2.3 million. Both got plenty of support from their national party organizations, and some independent groups as well.

Burner tried to paint Reichert as ineffective and attempted to tie him to President Bush, especially in his economic policies and position on the Iraq war. Reichert supports renewing the Bush administration's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts and backed Bush's temporary troop buildup in Iraq.

Reichert pointed out Burner's lack of public-service experience — she's never held elected office — and predicted she would support higher taxes.

The résumés flap

Late in the race, the campaign erupted into a battle over the candidates' résumés, after Burner exaggerated her degree at two debates. Burner has a Harvard University bachelor's degree in computer science, with a special field, or emphasis, in economics. At the debates, she said, "I loved economics so much I got a degree in it from Harvard."

Burner insists the issue is one of semantics and that she didn't exaggerate her degree.

The Reichert campaign ran television ads criticizing her statement. Burner hit back with ads of her own, defending her qualifications. Her campaign also accused Reichert of exaggerating his degree. He has a two-year degree from a Portland college, but the Burner campaign found a handful of Web sites that described his degree as a four-year degree.

Burner kicked off her campaign in May by publishing a plan to end the war in Iraq. Her report, which was co-authored by former military leaders, supported diplomatic solutions as a way to bring U.S. troops home.

But the focus of the campaign shifted at the end of the summer toward the economy, and the two candidates clashed over each other's tax plans. Burner put out an economic plan she said would cut taxes for middle-class families by suspending some of the Bush tax cuts and increasing the standard minimum deduction.

Reichert said Burner's plan would raise taxes for most 8th District families.

Their backgrounds

Reichert, 58, has been in Congress four years. Before that, he was King County sheriff for nine years, capping nearly 30 years in the King County Sheriff's Office. He's widely known as the man who led the team of detectives investigating the Green River Killer serial-murder case. He was sheriff when Gary L. Ridgway pleaded guilty to killing 48 women.

In Congress, Reichert has worked on legislation regarding law enforcement and homeland security. He has taken moderate positions on education and the environment, even earning endorsements this year by the national and state teachers unions, which generally endorse Democrats.

Burner, 37, grew up in a military family and graduated from high school in a small town in Nebraska. She attended Harvard University on a scholarship. After college, she worked at a variety of high-tech companies, including Microsoft.

Criticized by Reichert as lacking experience, she had held no public leadership positions before her first run for office, except for a short stint as president of her homeowners association. Between her 2006 and 2008 campaigns, she also served on the Committee for a Two-Newspaper Town.

Burner's Carnation-area home burned to the ground in July, in the middle of her campaign. The fire was blamed on a faulty electrical lamp.

Emily Heffter: 206-464-8246 or eheffter@seattletimes.com