55th District Democratic Candidate for State Senate Jen Lunsford conceded the race to incumbent Republican Rich Funke on Wednesday morning, after pulling off a surprising election night finish that came within a few thousand votes of defeating him.
Lunsford actually won the Monroe County portion of her district, but lost to Funke in Ontario County which has more heavily Republican registration.
She did not concede Tuesday night, saying she preferred to wait until absentee ballots were counted. But at 8:00 Wednesday morning, she issued a statement congratulating Funke on his victory.
Lunsford said she was proud of the race her team ran and of nearly beating the two term incumbent with a crowd-sourced campaign.
Lunsford ended up with 48-to-52 percent of the vote, in what was supposed to be a safe Republican district.