Clinton, Obama trading lead in Washington State's presidential primary

It's still early and the numbers are coming in fast, but so far our presidential primary hasn't been a big rout for Barack Obama; in fact, Hillary Clinton has actually held the lead at least a couple of times since the first results were posted, although Barack Obama is currently ahead.

I didn't post earlier because I wanted to see things were going (I'd prefer not to be rewriting a headline every five minutes).

The raw data as of 8:40 PM:

Barack Obama: 179,559 votes (49.64%)
Hillary Clinton: 170,909 votes (47.25%)

Naturally, the first ballots to be counted were the first to be mailed in, and it looks like many of them came from voters who were already decided on Hillary Clinton when they received their ballots earlier this month.

It's close for now, but expect Barack Obama to widen his lead as the night goes on. He's already moved up several percentage points since I first began writing this post at around the bottom of of the hour.

The latest reports from King County are breaking strongly in Obama's favor.

Meanwhile, for the Republicans, John McCain is having no trouble putting Mike Huckabee away. McCain has more than twice as many votes (48% to 21%). Oddly enough, Mitt Romney is running almost equal with Huckabee at 20%.

Keep in mind, though, that Romney's strong showing is likely due to those early voters who didn't wait to make up their minds.