PubliCola has gotten its hands on some polling results about the race for King County Executive. (Tonight is the first debate, and we've posed some questions to the candidates here.) 

Doing polling for Fred Jarrett's campaign, the Hart Research Associates poll surveyed 500 likely King County voters between April 20-22. Hart says there's 4.5 percent margin of error. The poll calls the race "wide open"  with only 18 percent of voters strongly committed to one candidate and 59 percent undecided. They called Republican Susan Hutchison the "nominal" front runner because of her name recognition (she was a KIRO TV anchor).

I'll take some more time to figure out what the polling means, but here's the snap shot, with Sen. Fred Jarrett slightly ahead of the Democratic pack.



At a cursory glance, I'd say the poll confirms what most folks know—Hutchison, the lone woman and lone Republican (and best known) is going to make it through the non-partisan, top-two primary, while the Democratic pack dukes it out for the chance to take her on. The question for Democrats becomes: Which Democrat is most likely to beat her? 

It also confirms this: Despite the fact that all four Democratic candidates are top-notch, heavy hitters—nobody knows who these guys are.