HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) 鈥� Democratic of Pennsylvania conceded his reelection bid to Republican on Thursday, as a statewide recount showed no signs of closing the gap and his campaign suffered repeated blows in court in its effort to get potentially favorable ballots counted.
Casey鈥檚 concession comes more than two weeks after Election Day, as a grindingly slow ballot-counting process became a spectacle of hours-long election board meetings, social media outrage, lawsuits and accusations that some county officials were openly flouting the law.
Republicans had been claiming that Democrats were trying to steal McCormick鈥檚 seat by counting 鈥渋llegal votes.鈥� Casey鈥檚 campaign had accused of Republicans of trying to block enough votes to prevent him from pulling ahead and winning.
In a statement, Casey said he had just called McCormick to congratulate him.
鈥淎s the first count of ballots is completed, Pennsylvanians can move forward with the knowledge that their voices were heard, whether their vote was the first to be counted or the last," Casey said.
The Associated Press the race on Nov. 7, concluding that not enough ballots remained to be counted in areas Casey was winning for him to take the lead.
As of Thursday, McCormick led by about 16,000 votes out of almost 7 million ballots counted.
That was well within the 0.5% margin threshold to trigger an automatic statewide recount under Pennsylvania law.
But no election official expected a recount to change more than a couple hundred votes or so, and Pennsylvania's highest court dealt him a blow when it refused entreaties to allow counties to count mail-in ballots that lacked a correct handwritten date on the return envelope.
Republicans will have a 53-47 majority next year in the U.S. Senate.
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Marc Levy, The Associated Press
