Unlikely GOP NJ Senate winner confident election results will hold despite opponent's refusal to concede

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Republican New Jersey Senate candidate Edward Durr is confident his unlikely election victory over Democratic Senate President Steve Sweeney will stand despite Sweeney’s refusal to concede the election.

“The entire team worked our butts off to win this election. We knocked on thousands of doors to achieve this win,” Durr told Fox News Tuesday. “I am confident that mathematically, the results of this election will hold.”

Durr’s comments come as Sweeney argues that “recently found” ballots could tilt the results in his favor.

This image from video provided by Fox News shows Edward Durr. 
(Fox News Channel’s "Fox News Primetime" via AP)

“The results from Tuesday’s election continue to come in. For instance, there were 12,000 ballots recently found in one county,” Sweeney told the Philadelphia Inquirer last week. “While I am currently trailing in the race, we want to make sure every vote is counted. Our voters deserve that, and we will wait for the final results.”

Sweeney has represented South Jersey’s 3rd district since 2002, and his defeat was seen as a shock to many analysts in the state. Durr, a truck driver and political newcomer, ran his campaign on a shoe-string budget, depending on knocking on “thousands of doors” to get his message to voters.

(Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images Fox News)

“No one on God’s Earth could have predicted that,” Democratic state Sen. Richard Codey said, according to NJ.com. 

Democratic strategist Joshua Henne echoed a similar sentiment.

“Anyone who said they saw this coming is lying. Even Sweeney’s opponent didn’t see this coming,” Henne said.

The Associated Press called the race in Durr’s favor Thursday morning with 100% of precincts reporting, tallying 32,742 votes for Durr to 30,444 for Sweeney.

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The New Jersey’s State House capitol in Trenton.
(iStock)

But Sweeney believes there are still more votes to be counted, a position his opponent said he understands.

“If I were in Senator Sweeny’s position, I would be the one waiting until the election results are official to concede,” Durr said. “I’ve lost an election before. I know what he’s going through. My differences with Senator Sweeney are political, not personal, so out of respect for the Senate president, I will not declare victory until the election results are made official.”

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