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Warner Ready to Suit Up for Another Term, Gillespie not Ready to Concede

Virginia Senator Mark Warner is claiming victory in his reelection contest, while his Republican challenger Ed Gillespie isn’t conceding.

While Republican challenger Ed Gillespie painted Warner as a rubber stamp for President Obama, Warner is promising voters he’s going to continue working across the aisle, like on the Gang of Six he joined to try to reach a bipartisan budget agreement to avoid sequestration. His campaign promises may now be tested when the new Republican controlled Senate convenes in January. Warner says he’s ready for the task. 

And yes, I’m going to suit up one more time for whatever group, gang, cabal or whatever it takes to make sure we get our nation’s balance sheet fixed and don’t leave the next generation with seventeen trillion in debt. We can do this together, Americans.”

Not so fast,’ says his challenger Ed Gillespie. He told supporters he can’t concede in good conscious quite yet.

I owe it to all of you to make sure that the outcome is final before we make any final decisions on this end so thank you all so much I love you all so much. Thank you for your hard work and lets just stay together for a few more days – maybe longer.”

Kyle Kondik with UVA’s center for Politics says he thinks Gillespie made the race so close because the race wasn’t on anyone’s radar.

Warner ran a good race. It might have actually been good for him that the race never got engaged because I think that a lot of Democrats just took it for granted. Maybe didn’t come out and vote.”

Kondik says he doesn’t think the tight contest foreshadows the 2016 presidential contest because voter turnout is expected to be much higher.

 

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