Snohomish County Council Member (and previous Larsen opponent), John Koster, a hardline conservative and Tea Party favorite, pulled ahead of five-term incumbent Democratic Rep. Rick Larsen (D-WA, 2, Northwest Washington) by 161 votes in the primary after yesterday's count. Koster got 42.16 to Larsen's 42.06.

Two other Democratic candidates—challenging Larsen from the left—pulled over 10 percent, so Larsen is facing a sort of Dino Rossi situation here, where he needs the ideologues in his base to come over in the general. (There was also another Republican in the race who got 5.4 percent.)

The PI.com's Joel Connelly has a good post on the race which comes with a provocative comment from Snohomish county lefty organizer, activist, and blogger Chad Shue:

Although the Larsen camp is counting on supporters of his two Progressive challengers, they shouldn't be counting chckens before they hatch.

Shue did a long Q&A with Larsen earlier this summer. And our Larsen endorsement, which was mostly about Koster (whose campaign was run by anti-gay rights activist Larry Stickney) is here.