After a manual recount triggered by a razor thin margin, Democratic challenger Betsy Fogle has defeated the incumbent Republican, Steve Helms, flipping Missouri’s 135th district House seat to blue.
Greene County Clerk Shane Schoeller’s office oversaw the manual recount, which took place Thursday as a bipartisan team of election workers looked on.
In the end, Fogle maintained her lead and has won the election by a mere 76 votes – that’s out of more than 17,000 votes cast in that race.
The Missouri House District 135 covers parts of central, east, and northeast Springfield. You can find a map of those House districts here.
The Missouri Code of State regulations calls for a manual recount when a candidate's margin of victory is equal to or less than one-half of one percent of the votes cast. The original margin of victory in the contest was 0.45 percent, leading to the manual recount. You can read more about the recount in this race by clicking here.