ALBANY (AP) -- The race to determine New York's next U.S. representative grew tighter Wednesday as vote totals were amended and both candidates began laying legal groundwork for what could be a prolonged process ultimately decided by absentee ballots.
By early afternoon, Democrat Scott Murphy's lead over Republican Jim Tedisco had shrunk to 25 votes, from 65 at the close of voting Tuesday night, according to an unofficial tally by The Associated Press. More than 154,000 votes were cast at machines in the 10-county 20th Congressional District.
The unofficial count was 77,217 for Murphy and 77,192 for Tedisco. The candidates waged a sharp-edged campaign on an accelerated schedule for the seat that Kirsten Gillibrand left when she was appointed to the U.S. Senate to succeed Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
More than 10,000 absentee ballots were issued, and overseas voters have until April 13 to return them by mail.
Both parties called the tight race a symbolic victory. Tedisco noted Democrats won the district in 2006 and 2008. Murphy points to a Republican advantage of 75,000 more registered voters than Democrats.
The district stretches from the rural Adirondack Mountains, an hour south of the Canadian border, through the mid-Hudson Valley, about an hour north of New York City.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said he's confident the absentee ballots will give Tedisco a win. With eight of the 10 counties reporting a breakdown for absentee ballots by party, so far nearly 2,600 registered Republicans have returned ballots to their districts, compared with nearly 1,700 Democrats. Another 586 absentee ballots have come in from smaller parties. Those ballots haven't been opened or counted yet.
"What we've done there is phenomenal," Steele said Wednesday in New York City. "I mean, look, you've got (Sen.) Chuck Schumer, (former Sen.) Hillary Clinton, you had Obama - all of them win in that district. Everybody says 'Oh that's a Republican district' - well if it's so Republican, how come Democrats are still winning there?"
"Today, well, last night, we showed that we can be competitive, that we can engage the voters with some new ideas, and we can possibly win this thing," he said.
But both parties are preparing for a fight.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen, who heads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said Democrats would wait for the canvassing to be completed - possibly next week - before deciding how to proceed.
"Obviously we have a whole lot of people on the ground who are monitoring things very closely to make sure all the votes are counted," he said.
Just hours after the polls closed Tuesday, the National Republican Congressional Committee sent an e-mail to supporters asking for money to help "overcome the Democrats' legal maneuvers." The e-mail, from Executive Director Guy Harrison, invoked the troubled Minnesota Senate election between Democrat Al Franken and Republican Norm Coleman. That race has dragged on for five months.
Democrats rejected the comparison Wednesday.
"The only similarity is this: When Republicans don't win on election night, they file a lawsuit," said Shripal Shah, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
The DCCC fired off its own e-mail request: "Our legal team is already on the ground fighting back but we need URGENT funds to help cover the costs."
The New York Daily News reported Tedisco's campaign had hired three election law specialists. His campaign and the Republican National Committee denied that anyone had been hired, but they conceded they've been talking to attorneys interested in the job. State Republican leaders filed a suit Tuesday to impound all paper ballots to ensure accuracy - a common move in close elections.
The race was widely viewed as the first electoral test of President Barack Obama's popularity and his economic policy.
Murphy, a businessman and political newcomer, and national Democrats framed his campaign on the strength of Obama and his economic policies, specifically his $787 billion economic stimulus plan.
Tedisco, an Assemblyman for 27 years, attacked Murphy for supporting the stimulus plan, which he said allowed massive bonuses at the bailed-out insurer American International Group Inc.
Both candidates got campaign money from their national parties and political action committees. They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on increasingly negative television ads, to the dismay of supporters of both candidates.
The candidates also faced a short calendar to get their message out. The election was announced at the end of January, giving them just two months to campaign.
(Copyright ©2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
