A poll released today by opinion researcher Greenberg Quinlan Rosner shows that a growing number of voters want to approve Referendum 71 and many who were planning to reject it are now undecided. Of 500 likely voters in the general election, 53 percent said they will vote to approve the measure—thereby voting to uphold the domestic partnership expansion bill for same-sex and senior couples—and 36 percent will vote to reject the measure. That's a 17-point spread.

"We are not out of the woods," says Josh Friedes, campaign manager of the Approve R-71 campaign, Washington Families Standing Together. He says that the poll represents a "snapshot" of the electorate, but many people—especially young urban voters, who maybe undecided in the mayor's race—still haven't voted. "Every year thousands of ballots are not counted because people mail them after the last pick-up at the mail box," he says. "We urge people not to hold on to their ballots."

A poll released in late September by the same firm found that the approve vote had only a seven-point lead (51 percent wanted to approve and 44 percent wanted to reject). And a poll in early October by SurveyUSA found the measure had only a three-point lead.