Nobody has won the 5th District yet. This afternoon we find out which way it breaks.
Most races were settled last Tuesday night. This one is waiting on a stack of ballots nobody has counted yet. The State Board lists more than 3,100 provisional ballots across the district's ten counties, though part of Guilford's pile belongs to other districts. Voters have until noon today to fix photo ID and absentee problems. This afternoon the county boards count what's left, in public.
Watauga goes at 1 p.m. at the county administration building. Guilford goes at 2, ABC45 has reported. Watauga's pile is 344 ballots. Ashe's is 82. Guilford's is 1,606, but only part of that county votes in the 5th, so its real number is smaller and nobody has published it. Guilford's slice of the 5th went for Hubbard by almost 48,000 votes in the unofficial results, the biggest margin in the district. That is why its pile is the one to watch.
The gap is 99 votes. Chuck Hubbard has them. Virginia Foxx wants them back. That is about 0.03 percent of everything cast.
So can it still move? Sure. Does it have to?
Here is our back-of-the-envelope, ours and not the State Board's. For each county we took its provisional ballots, counted a third to all of them, and split them the way that county voted in this race on Election Day, which assumes provisional voters look like everyone else in their county. For Guilford we used a bit over half its pile, since ABC45 says just over half its precincts are in the 5th. That makes about 2,400 ballots in the district. On those terms Hubbard's lead grows, by roughly 35 votes if a third of them count and 110 if all do. For Foxx to pass him, the provisional voters would have to move the Democratic-Republican margin about 17 points toward her, compared with their counties, if a third count, or about 9 points if all do. That could happen. It would also be a break from how these counties voted.
Guilford's elections director, Charlie Collicutt, told ABC45 that provisional ballots can shift a race, or break even, and that he has "seen it all different ways."
Foxx has said congressional observers will be in the district at her request, as we reported in What the Foxx Observers Can and Can't Do. Watauga's elections director says his board has heard about them, with no names or dates. Donna Lisenby of Indivisible High Country, who has written for left917, says a coalition including Down Home North Carolina, Indivisible High Country and Common Cause NC will send its own observers to Watauga's 1 p.m. meeting to watch the congressional ones. As of this morning nobody has published who the congressional observers are or which counties they will be in.
Both campaigns are saying the same thing in different clothes. Hubbard's Facebook page says he is "prepared to fight to count every vote." Foxx says the count and state law "will determine the election." Neither is conceding anything yet.
So this afternoon probably tells us which way this goes. It will not make it official.
Watauga's count is open to the public. At 5 p.m., a rally by Down Home North Carolina, Indivisible High Country, High Country Peace & Justice, Common Cause NC and Indivisible Neers gathers on the King Street sidewalk between the county administration building and the courthouse. Organizers say they hope to announce provisional counts from other 5th District counties as they come in.
Military and overseas ballots mailed by Election Day can still arrive until 5 p.m. Thursday. Friday at 11 a.m. is the county canvass, the official check where each board confirms its ballots were counted correctly and authenticates its results. Watauga's is on our calendar. If the trailing candidate finishes within 1 percent of the total votes cast, they can demand a recount after the county canvass, with the request due to the State Board by noon Tuesday, Nov. 17. The State Board certifies the congressional race at its Nov. 24 canvass.
Every number here is unofficial, and we are not calling it. Thanks for sticking with this one. We will update this page when the numbers land, and the county results are on the left917.net map.