LYMPIA, Wash. - Democrat Maria Cantwell edged Republican incumbent Slade Gorton by fewer than 2,000 votes after the final numbers were tallied yesterday in the nation's last undecided US Senate contest. An automatic recount will begin Monday.
''This long journey has come to a spectacular conclusion,'' said Cantwell spokesman Ellis Conklin. ''We're ahead, and we're going to win.''
Gorton's camp did not concede.
''We still have a long process ahead of us and at this point, we're trying to be optimistic,'' said spokeswoman Cynthia Bergman.
After more than 2.4 million votes were cast in 39 counties, the race was extraordinarily close. Cantwell had 1,199,260 votes, of 48.7 percent, to 1,197,307, or 48.6 percent, for Gorton - a difference of just 1,953 votes.
Under Washington law, a recount is automatic when an election margin is less than 0.5 percent, which would be about 12,000 votes in this case.
Secretary of State Ralph Munro said a recount would begin Monday and take about a week to complete. He said no recount in recent state history had reversed the outcome of a certified vote count.
A Cantwell victory would create a rare 50-50 tie in the Senate, at least until the presidential race is decided. It also would give the state two female senators for the first time and two Democrats in the Senate for the first time since the 1970s.
Gorton, 72, was seeking a fourth term overall and third in a row.
Cantwell, 42, who became a dot-com millionaire after getting bounced from Congress in 1984, took the lead for the first time Tuesday, primarily on returns from heavily Democratic Seattle and surrounding King County.
Conklin said no one on the Cantwell staff has done any serious transition planning. If she wins, they will rely heavily on Democrat Patty Murray, who would become the state's senior senator after just eight years in office.
