MOUNT LEBANON, Pa. -- Republicans considered a recount and a lawsuit over perceived irregularities in a U.S. House race in Pennsylvania where Democrat Conor Lamb clung to a slender lead Wednesday in the GOP stronghold friendly to President Donald Trump.
With the last batch of absentee ballots counted, Lamb, a 33-year-old former prosecutor and first-time candidate, saw his edge over Republican Rick Saccone shrink slightly to 627 votes out of more than 224,000 cast, according to unofficial results.
The four counties in the Pittsburgh-area district reported they had about 375 uncounted provisional, military and overseas ballots. They have seven days to count the provisional ballots, and the deadline to receive military and overseas ballots is next Tuesday.
With the margin so close, supporters of either candidate can ask for a recount.
The GOP is considering lodging a recount request, and county officials reported receiving a letter from a law firm requesting that they preserve their records, something the counties say they do anyway under state law.
Separately, Republicans mulled legal action, according to a person familiar with the deliberations. This person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning.
Complaints could include that party lawyers were prevented from observing the counting of some absentee ballots, voting machines erroneously recorded votes from Lamb, and voters were confused by some information from the state elections website.
Officials in Allegheny County, the most populous and Democratic-leaning county in the district, pushed back on Republican claims Wednesday, saying the lawyers had lacked written authorization from the GOP and that they had received no reports Tuesday of malfunctioning voting machines.
The Associated Press said it will not call the race because of the possibility of a recount.
The race is seen nationally as indicator of Democratic enthusiasm and GOP vulnerability heading into the November elections that will determine whether Republicans retain their control of Congress.
Lamb has declared victory. Saccone's campaign said that Saccone, a 60-year-old Air Force veteran turned state lawmaker and college instructor, had no plans to concede before vote counting was finished. Both men stayed out of sight Wednesday.
Lamb, a Marine veteran, told supporters Tuesday night that voters had directed him to "do your job" in Washington. "Mission accepted," he said.
From Saccone came words of defiance: "It's not over yet, we're going to fight all the way, all the way to the end, we'll never give up."
After the absentee vote count wrapped up Wednesday, Saccone gained 14 votes, trimming Lamb's lead in a district that Trump won by about 20 percentage points in 2016. Analysts, however, said they doubt Saccone will make up the deficit.
"Obviously, this is a very tough environment for Republicans," said Courtney Alexander, a spokesman for the Congressional Leadership Fund, which supports GOP candidates for the House. "Now more than ever, candidates and campaigns matter."
House Speaker Paul Ryan privately warned his ranks that the election should serve as a "wake-up call" as the party tries to defend its majorities in Congress this fall.
Democrats must flip 24 GOP-held seats this fall to seize control of the House, and months ago few had counted on the Pennsylvania district to be in play. The seat has been in Republican hands for the past 15 years.
It was open now only because Republican Rep. Tim Murphy, who espoused strong anti-abortion views, resigned last fall over revelations that he had asked a woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair to get an abortion.
Even before a winner was declared, Saccone was making plans to seek the nomination in a different district later this year. A state court has thrown out the state's congressional map in a gerrymandering case. The current districts have been redrawn, and the new ones will be in play in November.
Neither Saccone nor Lamb live in the new southwestern Pennsylvania district that leans solidly Republican without the Pittsburgh suburbs that helped Lamb.
Pennsylvania's congressional primaries are May 15, and Saccone's campaign officials said Saccone is gathering nominating signatures in that new district.
Under the new boundaries, Saccone's home is in a Pittsburgh-based district that is heavily Democratic and home to longtime Democratic Rep. Mike Doyle.
Lamb is expected to run in a new district west of Pittsburgh against Republican Rep. Keith Rothfus. That district was narrowly carried by Trump in 2016. It is far less friendly to Republicans than Rothfus' existing district and is described by Republicans as a toss-up.
Trump and his allies invested tremendous time and resources in keeping the seat in play Tuesday in Republican hands, mindful that the contest could be used to measure Trump's lasting appeal among white, working-class voters and Democrats' anti-Trump fervor.
Saccone had cast himself as the president's "wingman." But where Murphy had long allied himself with unions, Saccone's conservative voting record alienated them.
Lamb fully embraced the unions, as well as the district's history of steel-making and coal-mining, hammering Republican tax cuts as a giveaway to the rich and promising to defend Social Security, Medicare and pensions.
On Wednesday, a White House spokesman warned against reading too much into the outcome.
"Candidates that embrace the president going into this fall we think will have a better prospect," Raj Shah said. Trump's campaigning for Saccone "turned what was a deficit for the Republican candidate to what is essentially a tie."
Information for this article was contributed by Steve Peoples, Alan Fram and Andrew Taylor of The Associated Press.
A Section on 03/15/2018