page_title: Christine Gregoire
section_title: 2008 gubernatorial election
hierarchical_section_title: Christine Gregoire / 2008 gubernatorial election
caption_attribution_description: English: Governor Gregoire points to an Obama sign at a campaign office
context_page_description: Christine "Chris" O'Grady Gregoire is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 22nd governor of Washington from 2005 to 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, she defeated Republican candidate Dino Rossi in 2004 and again in 2008. She is the second female governor of Washington, and chaired the National Governors Association for the 2010–11 term. She also served on the Governors' Council of the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, D.C.
context_section_description: During the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton heavily lobbied Gregoire for her endorsement as a superdelegate.
  Gregoire officially endorsed Obama on February 8, 2008, hours before an event at KeyArena in Seattle where she introduced him before a crowd of 18,000 people. The Washington caucuses were held the next day, and Obama beat Clinton in every county.
  Gregoire began her reelection campaign at her late mother's former employer, the Rainbow Café in Auburn, Washington, on April 7, 2008. Immediately after her announcement, she began a biodiesel bus tour of the state. Her opponent in the race, Dino Rossi, had announced his candidacy in October 2007.
  Gregoire and Rossi fast approached fundraising records early in their campaigns. In April, Gregoire hosted a fundraiser with Bill Richardson at the Seattle Westin that netted the campaign over $300,000. In July, she held another large fundraiser with Michelle Obama at the WaMu Theater, with 1,600 attendees raising over $400,000.
  The Seattle Times reported that Gregoire gave cost-of-living increases to state employees who hadn't received raises in "many years", and funded voter-approved initiatives to raise the pay of schoolteachers, all groups that gave money to her 2004 recount campaign.
  Gregoire won Washington's first ever top two primary on August 19, 2008, with 49% of the vote. She advanced to the general election against Rossi. The general election was expected to be close, but Gregoire benefited from large turnout among Democrats to vote for Obama in the presidential election and won with 53% of the vote. There was a marked geographical split in the 2008 election: the more populous and Democratic-leaning Western Washington counties supported Gregoire, while the less populous and more Republican-leaning Eastern Washington counties supported Rossi.
caption: Gregoire at a campaign stop in August 2008
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