It’s been a week since Election Day and the race for California’s 50th Congressional District is finally over – almost.
At 7 p.m. tonight, Francine Busby is planning to concede the election to Rep. Brian Bilbray, a spokeswoman for her campaign said. The congressman continues to hold a 10-point lead, according to today’s vote tally.
Busby has refused to forfeit the race, saying that she owes it to her supporters to wait until all of the votes are counted.
The Registrar of Voter’s office spent the last week counting an estimated 200,000 absentee, paper and provisional ballots that were cast countywide.
An unknown number of that total came from the 50th District, but Busby and members of her campaign staff said they had expected to carry the majority and hoped to cut into Bilbray’s lead. That never happened.
Bilbray has hovered at 53 percent of the vote throughout the week, while Busby held steady at 43 percent.
Although it’s not quite 7 p.m., it’s time to end this one. Without further ado, Busby’s e-mailed concession statement:
Today, I called Mr. Bilbray and congratulated him as the representative of the 50th district. I wished him well in Congress as he works with his colleagues to serve the people of this District and our country in these times when many difficult decisions and challenges lay ahead.
I waited to make this statement out of respect for those who have asked me to wait until all votes were counted, because the last vote cast is as important as the first.
On that last point, approximately 42,000 votes remain to be counted according to the registrar’s website.