Her opponent demurs, but it probably doesn’t matter.
Michelle Vallejo
Michelle Vallejo declared victory Wednesday in the Democratic primary runoff for the national battleground 15th Congressional District in South Texas.
Her declaration came eight days after election night, when she emerged with a 23-vote margin over opponent Ruben Ramirez. Her margin grew to 33 votes as the largest counties in the district began to report their final unofficial results Wednesday.
But Ramirez was not ready to concede. His campaign said in a statement that “it is essential that every voter has their say before a final call is made.” The statement suggested the campaign still saw a path to victory.
“South Texas politics has a long tradition of upset victories,” the statement said.
Counties have until the end of day on Thursday to report their final numbers to the state, and even then, candidates can still request recounts. Since election night, counties have been counting mail-in ballots that were postmarked in the 11th-hour, military and overseas ballots that were due Tuesday and provisional ballots.
It was one of two key Democratic runoffs in South Texas that were unsettled coming out of election night. The other is the runoff for the 28th Congressional District, where the moderate nine-term U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, faced progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros. He led by 177 votes after election night, but as most counties reported their final unofficial results Wednesday, his margin widened to at least 192 votes.
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Candidates can request recounts if their margin is less than 10% of the number of votes their opponent received. Ramirez and Cisneros are currently well within that range.
See here for some background. I would expect both Ramirez and Cisneros to request recounts – the races are close, the recounts won’t cost them because they’re close – though as discussed many times I don’t expect that to make any difference. I’d like to get these settled quickly because they’re the two of the closest districts in the state, with CD15 redrawn to be 51-48 Trump in 2020, and we have our work cut out for us. Let’s get to the November part of the race, we don’t have time to lose.
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