Schmidt's lead keeps growing

Howard Wilkinson reports:

Republican incumbent Jean Schmidt’s lead over Democrat Victoria Wulsin in the 2nd Congressional District race has grown with every new set of provisional votes counted, but the Democrat is not ready to throw in the towel.

With new provisional vote counts from Warren and Pike counties, Schmidt now leads Wulsin by 3,220 votes - a net increase of 355 votes over her election night lead.

As of mid-afternoon Tuesday, there were only about 6,600 provisional ballots left to be counted in 2nd District – about 4,000 of them in Hamilton County.

The closeness of the election on Nov. 7 convinced Wulsin, an Indian Hill Democrat, that she should wait until all provisional ballots – ballots cast on election day by voters whose residency or identification was under question – were counted.

Wulsin said this afternoon that she is not ready to concede.
"With maybe 4,000 votes still to be counted, it wouldn’t be right for democracy for me to make this decision myself,’’ Wulsin said. "We need to make sure every vote counts."

Schmidt campaign spokesman Matt Perin said it is time for Wulsin to "move on."

"She is a very good doctor and she should be getting on with her profession,'' Perin said. "This is over."

In Hamilton County, with about 4,000 2nd District provisional ballots,and Clermont Count, with about 2,300, election officials planned to continue their count on Wednesday.

Two counties in the seven-county southern Ohio district – Brown and Adams – were the first to count their provisional ballots, finishing Monday.

Warren and Pike counties finished counting Tuesday afternoon. Warren County had 1,500 absentee ballots to count that were not counted on Nov. 7, along with about 900 provisional ballots cast that day.

In Scioto County, election officials went to work on their 300 2nd District provisional ballots late Tuesday afternoon.

We'll keep you posted.