Floyd McKay has in Crosscut a detailed look at the emerging – and it does continue to emerge – race in the new Washington 1st district, the part of northwestern Washington located roughly well east of I-5 and west of the Cascades.

He focuses on two key points (well, three if you could the lunacy of a prospective Dennis Kucinich campaign in the 1st).

One is that Republican John Koster, who came within a sliver in 2010 of ousting Democratic Representative Rick Larsen, has the Republican nomination sewn up and will be strong in the general election. He has lots of pluses, starting with having run strongly in much of this territory before, and strong organization and traditionally strong fundraising. We’d give him about even odds in the general right now.

The second is that the Democratic side is far from settled, and not yet even at the point where a front-runner can be easily discerned. The five Democratic contenders are all serious candidates with real advantages. Three (Suzan DelBene, Darcy Burner and Laura Ruderman) all have strong Microsoft backgrounds and have raised comparable amounts of money (some of it from that source), and all three have run for major office before (DelBene and Burner for the U.S. House, in the 8th district, and Ruderman for secretary of state, as well as election three times to the state House from King County’s east side). DelBene got a vice of confidence in an endorsement from Governor Chris Gregoire, but none so far look to be pulling far out ahead. And the two men in the race, businessman Darshan Rauniyar and legislator Steve Hobbs, are also running highly serious campaigns. This one has yet to be won by anybody.

One of the most interesting contests in the Northwest this year.