From MercuryNews.com:

The results of Tuesday’s state Senate election were still out Thursday, with Republican Sam Blakeslee remaining within reach of victory, but barely.

The San Luis Obispo assemblyman, with about 6,000 ballots yet to be counted in the 15th District race, was three-tenths of a point shy of the majority needed to outright win and avert an August runoff. His polling at 49.7 percent of the vote was unchanged from a day earlier when about 17,000 ballots remained uncounted.

Elections officials, who are wrestling with mail-in ballots submitted on Election Day and provisional ballots that need verification, don’t know when the final count will come. They face a Wednesday deadline, however.

Both Blakeslee and his top opponent John Laird, a former Democratic assemblyman from Santa Cruz, say they’re proceeding as though the runoff election will take place Aug. 17.

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