Republicans’ hold on one swing state’s government now comes down to a single legislative race, and their lead keeps slipping.
North Carolina state Sen. Danny Britt, a Republican, held a 228-vote edge over Democratic challenger Catina Hamm as of Wednesday afternoon, The Washington Post reported. That 0.4-percentage-point margin sits inside the range that allows for a recount, and the contest is the last one still uncalled in the state Senate.
Britt’s cushion has narrowed over the course of the week as election officials have worked through provisional ballots.
The outcome will decide whether Democrats seize complete control of North Carolina’s government in what the Post described as a “stunning sweep.” Should Britt lose, the state Senate would be split evenly between the two parties, leaving a Democratic lieutenant governor to break ties. Democrats already won control of the state House after flipping more than 20 seats in the midterms.
A flip would also change the landscape for Democratic Gov. Josh Stein, who has been boxed in by a legislature Republicans have controlled for 15 years. The razor-thin race caps off a brutal cycle for the GOP in North Carolina, which the Post counted among the party’s worst showings there. Republicans lost the state’s U.S. Senate contest by a staggering 20 percentage points and dropped five U.S. House seats, with two more still potentially in play.
The clock is now ticking. North Carolina counties face a Friday deadline to certify their results, and local candidates who lost their races by less than a percentage point have until Tuesday to ask for a recount.
Neither Hamm nor state Democrats have said publicly whether they plan to pursue one, according to the Post.
Britt, for his part, brushed off the threat of a recount. He told WRAL on Tuesday that he felt “confident that a recount changes nothing.”
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