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Kate Sheehy

Republican Martha McSally addresses her supporters on election night. McSally said she was expecting to wait for results, and wanted people to focus on the hard work done on her campaign.

Kate Sheehy

Democratic incumbent Ron Barber tells the crowd at the Pima County Dems election party "Here we are again," referring to the close race against McSally in 2012.

Southern Arizona’s closely contested 2nd Congressional District looks like it will not have a winner anytime soon. The Republican challenger Martha McSally held a small lead of about 1,300 votes over Democratic incumbent Ron Barber.

On Wednesday morning tens of thousands of ballots still needed to be counted. 

Both candidates have said they’re prepared for a waiting game. It is shaping up to be a repeat of 2012,  when it took more than a week for Barber to eek out a win over McSally.

Barber remarked in a statement that two years ago he was also behind in votes the day after the election, but triumphed once the last early ballots were counted.

The district covers Cochise County and half of Pima County, including Tucson.

Discrepancies with counting more than 20,000 early ballots caused a delay in Cochise County, where McSally won in 2012. As of Wednesday morning there were nearly 47,000 votes to be counted in Pima County, including more than 32,000 early and provisional ballots. It could take up to 10 days to process all of them.

Barber beat McSally by less than one percent of the votes in 2012.