WASHINGTON — Virginia Democratic state Sen. Mark Herring holds a 164-vote lead over Republican state Sen. Mark Obenshain in the attorney general’s race.
While the prospect of a statewide recount remains, the Herring campaign seems ready to uncork the champagne.
“There’s no reason to believe, given the process that Virginia follows with respect to recounts, that we will see any significant change,” says Marc Elias, legal counsel for the Herring campaign.
The state is expected to certify the results Nov. 25. A recount cannot be requested until then.
Elias says he’s confident because any statewide recount would not be by hand, but rather by the same machines that tabulated the initial result.
“It’s just less likely that you’re going to get ballots that are going to be counted differently by a machine then they were counted last time by a machine,” Elias says.
So confident is the Herring campaign that it’s named a transition team headed by David Hallock, deputy chief of staff to Virginia Sen. Mark Warner.
But Republican Mark Obenshain is not throwing in the towel. Trailing by fewer than 200 votes out of 2 million cast, Obenshain’s campaign is also planning a transition.
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