Nate McMurray will not admit defeat in the special election to fill the vacancy left by former Congressman Chris Collins.
He held a press conference on Friday outlining the reasons why he will not concede to Chris Jacobs, the Republican, who has a 30,000 vote lead.
“It is not just premature, it would be irresponsible to declare victory as Mr. Jacobs has done,” McMurray said. “It would be equally irresponsible for me to claim defeat or submit, which I will not do until all the votes are counted.”
McMurray says due to the volume of ballots cast by mail declaring victory or admitting defeat would not be wise.
“We know that in any election, an old strategy is to declare victory before the election’s over,” McMurray said. “We saw Chris Collins do it a few years ago and it threw me off then and I’ve learned from that, that you do not submit before you count every single vote.”
McMurray was defeated by then-Congressman Collins in 2018. The 27th Congressional District includes part of Ontario County.
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