Republican hopes of keeping control of the Senate dangled by the slimmest filament late Wednesday as it appeared all but certain that Democratic challenger James Webb Jr.’s razor-thin margin would hold up against GOP Sen. George Allen of Virginia.
Another opportunity for Republicans to hold on to power in the Senate faded with unofficial totals from Montana showing that Democratic challenger Jon Tester edged Sen. Conrad Burns.
If the outcomes in both contests hold up, Democrats would control the Senate on the strength of 49 party-held seats plus those of two independents who have pledged to organize with the party.
Late Wednesday, The Associated Press said it contacted election officials in all 134 Virginia localities where voting occurred, obtaining updated numbers that showed Webb with a lead of 7,236 votes out of more than 2.3 million ballots cast. Virginia has had two statewide vote recounts in modern history, but both resulted in relatively small vote changes.
The Allen campaign wasn’t quite ready to throw in the towel.
“The senator is going to see the canvass through. It should wrap up by mid to late afternoon tomorrow,” a senior adviser to the campaign said late Wednesday.
“He has no intention of dragging this out. If the numbers hold true to what they were on election night and there is no dramatic movement, he is disinclined to pursue a recount.”
Asked whether that meant that Allen would then concede, the adviser said, “I’m going to stick to what I just said.”
Earlier the Allen campaign had served notice that it would be on the lookout for human or mechanical glitches that could add to the senator’s total or reduce Webb’s.
“When you’re operating in a margin of three-tenths of 1 percent, there’s reason for hope,” Allen adviser Ed Gillespie said.
Broken or improperly calibrated voting machines, power outages and human error in tallying votes all could affect totals, according to Gillespie and Lee Goodman, an attorney for the Virginia Republican Party.
The Webb campaign, meanwhile, answered its phones with the greeting “Senator-elect Jim Webb’s office,” and downplayed Allen’s prospects of significantly shrinking his deficit.
“The chances of finding errors that add up to 7,000 votes [are] highly, highly unlikely,” said Webb spokeswoman Kristian Denny Todd.
“This isn’t hanging chads,” Todd said, referring to the imperfectly marked paper ballots that wreaked havoc in Florida’s disputed 2000 presidential election. “Virginia is very efficient and accurate when it comes to this kind of thing.”
Both camps dispatched observers to local boards of election as officials retabulated Tuesday’s results. Local boards have until Nov. 14 to send the results of a completed canvass to state election officials. The state board of elections follows with its own review before certifying the final tallies.
Vote totals under review already include absentee ballots, including military ballots, according to Barbara Cockrell, assistant secretary for elections and training for the Virginia State Board of Elections.
Cockrell said she was unaware of any major problems with balloting across the state, and Gillespie, a former Republican national chairman, did not allege any improprieties in the vote.
Under Virginia law, Allen can demand a recount at his expense if the margin is between 1 percent and one-half of 1 percent of the total votes cast in the race.
Recent history suggests that Allen’s best chance for making up ground is during the local canvasses but that he would be hard-pressed to close a gap as sizeable as the one he faces.
In the 2005 election, an initial margin of 3,000 votes out of about 2 million ballots cast in the Virginia attorney general’s race melted to 323 votes by the time local canvasses and state board of elections review were completed. But a subsequent recount changed the final result by only 37 votes.
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azajac@tribune.com
