Congressman Tom Reed appears to have won another term in the 23rd District.
His challenger, Democrat Tracy Mitrano, did not concede on Tuesday or Wednesday morning. Like many Democrats in Upstate races that wound up with larger margins between incumbents and challengers than was forecasted – she pointed to absentee ballots that still needed to be counted.
Late-Tuesday, Rep. Reed claimed victory in a live-stream with supporters. “We have definitely won this election for another two years to represent this area in Washington,” he said. “We’re going back to D.C. and we’re going to bring people together and we’re going to have brighter days ahead of us.”
He spoke to getting COVID-19 in the rear view mirror, as well.
Meanwhile, Mitrano told The Cornell Sun that his declaration was premature. “Now I know that (Reed) would prefer not to have Tompkins County in this district, but I’m afraid that it is a part of the 23rd and with 70 percent of it yet to report today’s results and 40,000 absentee ballots outstanding, that declaration was premature,” she told the Ithaca-based outlet.
As of Wednesday around 10 a.m. Mitrano was down approximately 70,000 votes with 506 of 526 districts reporting. A total of 261,523 ballots had been counted to that point.
Mitrano had predicted that it would take two attempts to unseat Rep. Reed. However, polls and pundits appeared to under forecast turnout of Republican voters, which swung key Congressional races in the Finger Lakes.
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Josh is the publisher of FingerLakes1.com. Have a question? Send them to [email protected].