Republican Senate candidate Ed Gillespie conceded the Virginia Senate race Friday to incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Warner at a press conference in Washington, D.C.
According to the Virginia Board of Elections, Gillespie unofficially finished about 16,000 votes behind Warner in the closest Senate race in the country. The final statewide canvass of votes should finish early this week, and results will be certified by Nov. 24.
“The canvassing process usually finds more votes, sometimes a fair number in one site where some sort of error or miscount may have occurred,” Center for Politics spokesperson Geoffrey Skelley said.
Much pre-election polling forecasted Gillespie as trailing by at least 10 percentage points. However, as precinct results trickled in on election night, Gillespie led most of the evening and ended the night trailing by less than a percentage point.
“Polling has many problems, there's little question about that,” Skelley said. “Pollsters around the country had some large misses, Virginia among them. There are many challenges to the field, whether it's low response rates, contacting cell phone users, or using effective likely voter screens. Plenty of methodological inquiries will have to be made going forward.”
With his concession, Gillespie officially ended the race.
“It would be wrong to put my fellow Virginians through a recount, when in my head and in my heart I know that changing the outcome is not possible,” Gillespie said.
Gillespie went on to express hope for a greater working relationship between the traditional Liberty movement and Tea Party Republicans. He applauded the spread of support for his campaign throughout the commonwealth, specifically through targeting non-traditional groups at ethnic festivals and homeless centers.
In response to Gillespie’s concession, Warner released a statement commending Gillespie on a hard fought campaign and wishing him and his family well.
“Representing Virginia has been the honor of my life, and I am gratified that the people of the commonwealth have rehired me for a new term,” Warner said in the release. “I will spend every day working to get the Senate back in the business of solving problems and not simply scoring political points.”
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