The balance of power in the U.S. Senate remained in doubt Friday as fewer than 2,000 votes separated the two candidates seeking a Washington state seat.
In the only Senate race still not decided, about 51,000 absentee ballots were yet to be counted with Democratic challenger Maria Cantwell trailing three-term Republican Sen. Slade Gorton by 1,765 votes. If Cantwell wins, the upper house of Congress would end up with 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans.
Gorton, 72, a conservative Republican, had 1,165,927 votes against 1,164,162 votes for 48-year-old Cantwell, a former member of the House of Representative who made a fortune working in the high-tech industry after she lost her seat in 1994. She spent about $10 million of her own money seeking the Senate seat. Libertarian candidate Jeff Jared held 62,127 votes, the Washington secretary of state reported.
That left Cantwell and Gorton separated by just .07 percent of the 2,445,204 ballots counted so far.
Under the state’s election laws, an automatic recount is triggered if the two leading candidates are separated by one-half of 1 percent, or less. Based on the number of votes cast in the Cantwell-Gorton race, state officials said that would mean a recount if the two were separated by about 12,000 votes or less when all the votes are counted.
The initial recount would be done by machine. State law requires a hand count only when candidates are separated by 150 votes or less.
Whatever the outcome in Washington, there will be a record number of women in the Senate when it convenes in January. The new Senate will include 12 women, and if Cantwell wins her race, the number would be 13.
A Cantwell victory could leave the Senate equally divided, depending on the presidential race. One way or the other, however, the Republicans will hold an edge.
If George W. Bush wins, Dick Cheney, as vice president, will preside over the Senate, able to cast tie-breaking votes. If Vice President Al Gore wins the White House, his running mate, Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, would resign his Senate seat. The state’s Republican governor would likely appoint a Republican to fill Lieberman’s post, leaving the Republicans with a 51-49 advantage.
Vote totals in the Cantwell-Gorton race have narrowed and widened and then narrowed again over the last week as county-by-county results were reported.
The state of Washington is divided geographically and politically by the Cascade Mountains that separate the generally liberal, Democratic coastal areas that include Seattle and other cities near Puget Sound from the more rural, agricultural counties east of the mountains.
The total number of votes outstanding in the counties where Cantwell was running well was 23,250, while the total remaining uncounted votes in the Gorton-leaning counties was 20,888. In three counties where the vote was too close to predict a winner, there were 6,850 ballots left to count.
Cantwell was running well ahead of Gorton west of the Cascades, particularly in King County and Snohomish County. Gorton was ahead in the less populous but more numerous counties to the east. Thirty-three of Washington’s counties lean Republican, three are solidly Democratic and three are almost evenly split between the two parties.
The state’s 39 counties have until Wednesday to certify their vote counts, and some of the absentee ballots, the only ones still uncounted, will not finalize the counting until that day. The Washington secretary of state’s office has until Dec. 7 to certify the count for the state.
