State Democrats are pushing back against a Seattle Post-Intelligencer story from this morning stating that early turnout numbers were hurting Gov. Chris Gregoire. Gregoire has been consistently leading in polls for the last month.

They call the analysis "deeply flawed" and suggest that their methodology does not accurate take into account King County polling places.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer today published an “analysis” of the early voting in the Governor’s race that is deeply flawed and laughably inaccurate. The P-I concludes that Governor Gregoire is facing a turnout deficit based on two fundamentally inaccurate methodological assumptions: (1) the analysis fails to account for the fact that King County uses both vote-by-mail and poll voting and (2) projections, according to the P-I, “are based on doubling the percentage of absentee ballots that had been received late last week.” Amazingly, the P-I notes that when its methodology resulted in over 100 percent turnout in pro-Rossi counties, “the number was adjusted to reflect 99 percent turnout,” which would be a historically unprecedented turnout rate in any county.

It is all downhill from there. In short, the article falsely claims that King County is underperforming – even though close to 300,000 voters will cast their ballots at the polls tomorrow – and relies on universal participation in the smaller, pro-Rossi counties. When you unpack this “analysis,” the news is actually quite bad for Dino Rossi. King County is actually performing well for Governor Gregoire, and we are expecting 85 percent turnout there. Rossi’s strongest counties are not likely to perform at 99 percent turnout, as the P-I assumes.

It is worth noting that the final two P-I articles this election cycle were about campaign staff salaries and this comically flawed analysis of how Governor Gregoire is facing a turnout deficit. Thanks for all the great work!

Gregoire's campaign, however, is using the conclusion to draw in some last minute cash to aid their GOTV effort. They sent out an e-mail citing the P-I report as a reminder that supporters need to do everything they can to assure victory.

The Seattle P-I just reported that turnout among Democrats is lower than among Republicans.

We have an aggressive plan to tip the scales in our favor in the next 24 hours, but we need your support to put this program into action.

Continuing our state’s progress won’t come without a fight, and your support could make the difference.