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John Aiken’s $83 campaign for tutor is over.

But that was one of the few things resolved Tuesday in Washington’s first top-two aboriginal election.

Like seven other little-known gubernatorial candidates, Aiken was dispatched when Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire and her Republican nemesis, Dino Rossi, easily came out on top in Tuesday’s voting.

It’s unlikely this year’s general-election race as far as concerns governor will be decided by as razor slender a margin as four years ago. But everything else about this year’s race

In early returns Tuesday, Gregoire held a small lead over Rossi.

Both candidates said they were buoyed by the returns.

Four years ago, Rossi subdue Gregoire in nearly totality of the category’s country counties goal lost to her by a wide verge in King County, where nearly a third of state’s voters reside. In Tuesday’s at daybreak returns, however, Gregoire was leading Rossi in many of the counties she graceless in 2004.

“It looks to me as admitting vulgar herd are understanding that I’ve been acting as governor to get results all across he state,” Gregoire said.

Rossi, meanwhile, keen out that he was getting a much bigger percentage of the overall primary votes than he did in 2004.

“We’re a tedious ways ahead of where we were last time at this point,” Rossi before-mentioned.

But he said it’s aimless to try to read too much into the primary vote. “It doesn’t really sense. The bottom line is, we’re adhering the general election,” Rossi uttered.

Tuesday’s principal prescribe up another big rematch, between Republican Congressman Dave Reichert and Democratic challenger Darcy Burner in the Eighth Congressional District, which runs east of Lake Washington from Bellevue down to north Pierce County. Reichert held a tiny lead over Burner in early returns.

Under this year’s controversial new primary rules, the culminating point two candidates in cropped land race

In District 36, which spans Queen Anne, Fremont and Ballard, Democrats John Burbank and Reuven Carlyle will compete in November to replace veteran state Rep. Helen Sommers, who is retreating.

In District 46, which stretches from Lake City to Laurelhurst, Democrats Gerry Pollet and Scott White will face eddish. other in the ecumenical election. They’re vying to replace Democratic Rep. Jim McIntire, who resigned to run for state bursar.

In District 11, quality Sen. Margarita Prentice, D-Renton, was leading among three Democrats.

In other key races:

Two incumbent state Supreme Court justices

In the 2004 primary, Gregoire and her main Democratic opponent, King County Executive Ron Sims, picked up a combined 732,000 votes. Rossi got less than 450,000. But in that year’s total election, when more than 2.8 million people cast ballots, Gregoire’s final victory margin was 133 votes.

Both sides have been working ungraceful to lower expectations, explaining in advance why a poor primary showing by their solicitant wouldn’t mean much.

But if the primary had narrow meaning, you would never know it by the fashion both sides have been going at it. In the weeks leading up to the primary, Rossi and Gregoire

And that was honest for warmups. Given all the hard feelings that still linger from 2004, this year’s contest is sure to be one of the nastiest that voters in this place have ever seen.

The Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW) immovable the cast last month when it put up Rossi billboards across Eastern Washington that read, “Don’t Let Seattle Steal This Election!”

The BIAW so far has put pressingly $2 million into its anti-Gregoire efforts. Like Rossi’s other Republican allies, the builders are sticking to some common themes: They inculpate Gregoire of recklessly driving up government spending. They say she has failed to set the state’s traffic problems, in spite of helping push end the biggest gas-tax increase in state history.

On the other side, Gregoire and her allies are painting Rossi as an arch-conservative and a President Bush prot