On election night, Republican incumbent state Senator Frank Padavan was leading Democratic challenger James Gennaro by 723 votes out of more than 80,000 votes cast in the 11th State Senate district in Queens. After the recount, Padavan’s lead has decreased to 502 votes, with 8,000 absentee and paper ballots remaining to be counted.

Democrats sound pretty confident in this article for The New York Times that Gennaro will end up winning:

Representative Joseph Crowley, the Democratic Party chairman in Queens, said that he was encouraged by the preliminary count and that he expected Mr. Gennaro to win once all the remaining ballots were counted.

“I feel pretty confident that when the paper is counted, well have a new senator going to Albany from Queens,” Mr. Crowley said in an interview.

[snip]

[Gennaro campaign consultant Evan Stavisky] added that “the majority of the outstanding ballots are affidavit ballots,” referring to ballots cast by voters whose names were not on the rolls at their polling places but who were allowed to vote.

“And those traditionally tend to go for the Democratic candidate,” Mr. Stavisky said.

In an interview on Wednesday morning, Mr. Padavan said, “We are neither optimistic nor pessimistic about the results.”

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