Courtesy photos
Yvette Herrell, left, and Xochitl Torres Small
With all votes from Cibola County now tallied, Republican Yvette Herrell leads Democrat Xochitl Torres Small by 1,873 votes in the race to replace Steve Pearce in the U.S. House.
Earlier in the day, Herrell led by 1,973 votes, so Torres Small closed the gap by 100 votes with the completion of counting in Cibola County.
Yet to be added to the totals are approximately 8,000 absentee ballots that are still being tallied in Doña Ana County.
The race is still up in the air. With 187,745 votes counted, Herrell has 94,809 votes, or 50.5 percent, to Torres Small’s 92,936 votes, or 49.5 percent.
Thus far, 62.09 percent of the vote in Doña Ana County has gone to Torres Small, so expect her to gain on Herrell when the absentee number is added to the total. Whether it will be enough to put her in the lead is anyone’s guess.
Some speculative math here (fair warning): If exactly 8,000 absentee ballots are counted in Doña Ana County (that’s probably not the exact number), and 62.09 percent of the remaining ballots go to Torres Small (which isn’t likely to happen), she’d win 4,967 additional votes in Doña Ana County to Herrell’s 3,033. That would put Torres Small ahead by just 61 votes, 97,903 to 97,842.
On top of that, there are about 1,000 provisional ballots in Doña Ana County, and probably more in other counties. In Doña Ana County, those ballots can’t be considered until the other votes are all tallied. Most of those will be rejected, but some may be counted.
Stay tuned.