Mike Lowry

If Christine Gregoire, now trailing Dino Rossi in a Rasmussen Reports poll released today, loses her bid for re-election to a second term, she will be the first incumbent Governor to get tossed by the voters since Republican John Spellman lost to Democrat Booth Gardner in 1984.  Four years earlier, Democratic Gov. Dixie Lee Ray lost the Democratic primary to now-U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott, who went on to lose the general to Spellman -- and the '84 primary to Gardner.

Washington has sixteen living former members of the U.S. House of Representatives: Don Bonker, Rod Chandler, John Cunningham, Tom Foley, Mike Kreidler, Mike Lowry, Mike McCormack, John Miller, Sid Morrison, George Nethercutt, Linda Smith, William Stinson, Allan Swift, Randy Tate, Jolene Unsoeld, and Rick White.  The oldest living ex-Congressman is the 86-year-old McCormack, a Democrat who served from 1975 to 1981.  He was first elected to the Washington State House of Representatives in 1956, and served in the State Senate from 1961 to 1969.  He lost his bid for re-election in 1980.