Political Start

Gregoire then began working under some of Washington's top Republicans, including in the Spokane office of Sen. Slade Gorton (R). From there Attorney General Ken Eikenberry (R) hired her as a deputy attorney general in Olympia, Wash. In 1988 she got her big break when Washington's Democratic Governor, Booth Gardner, tapped her to head the state Department of Ecology, where she focused on cleaning up radioactive waste at the nuclear site known as Hanford.

In 1992, when Washington sent Patty Murray (D) to the Senate and Maria Cantwell (D) to the House of Representatives, Gregoire ran for and won the position of attorney general as a Democrat. She says that she prefers to work in a bipartisan manner.

Gregoire served three terms as attorney general, garnering national attention for her role as lead negotiator in the 46-state, $206 billion tobacco industry settlement in 1998. The case halted tobacco ads that seemed to be aimed at young people and reimbursed states for some of the health-care costs associated with smoking. Washington state's cut was $4.5 billion over 25 years.

Gregoire is married to retired Washington state Medicaid investigator Mike Gregoire, who she met when they both worked for the Washington Department of Social and Health Services in the early 1970s. They have two grown daughters.

2004 Governor's Race

When Gov. Gary Locke (D), then-chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, announced that he would not run for a third term in 2004, attorney general Gregoire looked like a good bet to replace him. She announced her candidacy in July 2003, the same day Locke said he would not run.

A week later doctors told her she needed a mastectomy to remove breast cancer. She briefly considered dropping out of the gubernatorial race, but had the surgery in September 2003 and returned to the campaign trail a month later.

Gregoire faced King County Executive Ron Sims in the Democratic primary. With Washington state notching the nation's second-highest unemployment rate in 2003, most of the primary debate focused on the economy. In August 2004, however, news came out that Gregoire's sorority at the University of Washington had excluded African-American students. Gregoire's campaign accused Sims, who is black, of spreading the story and said she had worked within the system to change it.In the end, it didn't matter as Gregoire carried every county in the state and defeated Sims, 66 to 30 percent.

In the general election, Gregoire faced state Sen. Dino Rossi (R), a former real estate investor who had been personally approached about running by President George W. Bush.

Recount Battle

Because Washington is one of the two states that allow citizens to mail in absentee ballots as late as Election Day, it took more than two weeks to count all the votes. On November 17, 2004, Rossi was declared the winner by 261 votes out of the 2.8 million cast.

State law requires an automatic machine recount if the margin of victory in a race is under 2,000 votes or 0.5 percent of votes cast. The margin between Rossi and Gregoire was 0.0093 percent. When the machine recount finished on November 24, Rossi was the winner again, by 42 votes. On November 29 Rossi was certified the governor-elect, but Gregoire refused to concede.

Another state law said Gregoire could request a statewide hand recount if the Democratic Party would pay for it. The party raised the $730,000 it needed from leftover funds from Sen. John F. Kerry's (D-Mass.) unsuccessful presidential campaign, the Democratic National Committee and the liberal netroots group MoveOn.org. Ballots were uncovered that had been wrongly thrown out, and the state Supreme Court ordered them counted. On December 30, 2004, Gregoire was declared the governor-elect by Republican Secretary of State Sam Reed by 129 votes (later amended to 133). Two recounts and a lawsuit later, Gregoire had won the closest race in state history.

In her 2005 inaugural speech, while Republicans were still fighting in court for a new election, Gregoire said: "Many have asked how I can govern without a clear mandate from the voters. I believe the voters have given all of us a mandate-a mandate to overcome our differences, and to solve problems. It is healthy to have differences of opinion about how to rise to these challenges. It is unhealthy to let those differences paralyze us." Once in office, with Democratic majorities in the state House and Senate, Gregoire created an election- reform task force.

By the end of 2005, Gregoire still had low approval ratings, due in part to her drawn-out victory and unpopular tax increases. The state Democratic Party ran focus groups to see how to soften her image. Press releases began referring to the governor as "Chris," a nickname she said she was called by friends and family, rather than Christine. Her approval rating finally broke the 50 percent threshold in mid-2007.

2008 Governor's Race

As expected, Gregoire waged a rematch with Rossi in 2008. Since the disputed 2004 election, he had written a book and traveled across the state giving speeches.

Between them, the candidates spent more than $40 million. Gregoire aligned herself with Obama, who she had endorsed in February 2008, and Rossi distanced himself from President George W. Bush and the Republican Party by opting to have the party nickname G.O.P. appear with his name on the ballot, rather than the word "Republican."

Polls showed the two candidates virtually tied through most of the campaign, and many Washingtonians braced for another recount. But on election night, Gregoire had a large enough lead that she was declared the winner while the final votes were tallied. Barack Obama carried the state by 17 points, and Gregoire beat Rossi, 53 to 47 percent.

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