US Sen. Patty Murray widened her lead over GOP challenger Dino Rossi in the latest vote totals this afternoon---from a margin of 50.84 to 49.16 yesterday night to 51.39 to 48.61 this afternoon, making her lead increasingly difficult for Rossi to overcome.

Murray also widened her lead in King County, where she now leads Rossi 63.21 to 36.46 percent. She received 68 percent of the King County batch compared to 66 percent yesterday and 62 on election night.

The force of the King County vote (which makes up about a third of the statewide vote) seems devastating for Rossi. The County now estimates a massive 71.9 percent turnout—about 769,000 ballots with more trickling in. So far, they have counted 493,192 of those with about 276,195 left to count.

In addition to King, Murray has only won seven other counties—Snohomish, Jefferson, Grays Harbor, Thurston, Pacific, and Whatcom—of 39.

Statewide, Murray leads Rossi by nearly 50,000 votes out of about 1.62 million cast---a wider lead than yesterday, when Rossi trailed Murray by just over 27,000 votes. A Rossi win now looks impossible : Rossi would have had to receive today 51.9 percent of the remaining statewide statewide to catch up to Murray, according to the Seattle Times number crunch.