While there are thousands of provisional and absentee ballots still not counted, US Congresswoman Deborah Pryce claimed victory in the tough election against democrat Mary Jo Kilroy. Kilroy said the race is too close to call, and will not concede.
"She's definitely jumped the gun," Kilroy said.
15th Congressional democratic challenger Mary Jo Kilroy said US Congresswoman Deborah Pryce is claiming victory too early. WOSU's numbers show Kilroy trailing Pryce by about 3,800. Kilroy said the race is not over.
"There's thousands of votes left uncounted. So we think this race is still on. It's not decided yet," Kilroy said.
Pryce made it clear she expects to return to Washington for her 8th term. She announced she will step down from her party's leadership team.
"I'm not going to be in my party's leadership in the next Congress. I'm going to step down from the conference chairmanship, allow somebody else to take a shot at that. I think it's very important that I not only spend the next couple of weeks securing this victory, and making sure it's done properly in terms of the provisional ballots," Pryce said.
Franklin County officials say there are more than 40,000 absentee and provisional ballots not yet tallied. About half of those voters live in the 15th Congressional district. Kilroy said a good portion of the provisional ballots are from the Ohio State University area and she thinks those votes will be in her favor.
"Since the greater number of the provisionals appear to be at the Ohio State precincts, and I think those are precincts I would do very well in. So that gives us additional cause for optimism about the eventual outcome of this race once all the votes are counted," Kilroy said.
Pryce said her campaign is ahead of Kilroy by about 3,600 votes, and said Kilroy will have a tough time catching up.
"We will be victorious. This is definitely, I mean, anybody who looks at the numbers, I don't think has much question about that. I mean the numbers speak for themselves. And I don't know if she's reading them correctly if she does not think we've won this election," Pryce said.
The Ohio 15th congressional race has been one of the most watched races in the state and around the country. And it will likely be several days before a final count is announced.