Claudia Tenney speaking to TWC news reporter Cara Thomas at her campaign headquarters in New Hartford, N.Y., following her election night victory in 2016 (Photo: TWCNews)
CORTLAND, N.Y. — Three weeks after Election Day, U.S. Rep. Claudia Tenney has conceded defeat to Anthony Brindisi in the 22nd congressional district.
"The election for New York’s 22nd District was one of the closest in the nation. It has become clear that while we remain on the right side of the issues and history, we came out on the wrong side of this battle. It was a tough night across New York," Tenney said in a statement.
"The strength of our campaign was always our great volunteers and a message of bringing people together. Now it’s time to put the election behind us and focus on representing all the people of this community whether they voted for me or not," Brindisi said in a statement.
Brindisi had declared victory on election night, but an error with a voting machine in Broome County shrunk Brindisi's lead from 1,400 votes to around 200 votes.
Tenney admitted defeat after the Associated Press reported Wednesday afternoon that Brindisi was the official winner; however, other news outlets—such as the Utica Observer-Dispatch and Syracuse.com—reported that Tenney had no mathematical chance of winning the race after she fell behind by 4,000 votes with fewer than 2,000 absentee ballots left to count.
Anthony Brindisi has officially defeated Rep. Claudia Tenney in #NY22, flipping the district to Democrats https://t.co/afFlem8sYQ
— Roll Call (@rollcall) November 28, 2018
