If Rep. Charles Rangel thought he was finished with the toughest re-election campaign of his life on Tuesday night, he may have been mistaken. As results have continued to trickle in, his margin of victory has shrunk significantly, and the possibility of a recount, however remote, has increased.
When the New York Times called the race for Rangel on Tuesday night, the congressman was beating his main challenger for the District 13 seat, State Senator Adriano Espaillat, by about 20 percentage points. Rangel finished the night with a narrower 5.4 percentage point lead, and that lead has since dipped to 2.6 percent, with many votes yet to be counted.
According to unofficial results from The Associated Press, the longtime Harlem Congressman has 16,898 votes to Espaillat’s 15,823 votes—a difference of only 1,075. That tally also doesn’t include 32 of the district’s 506 precincts, or any absentee ballots.
