Ron Barber Defeats Martha McSally in CD-2

Finally, we know who Arizonans are sending to Congress — the Democratic Congressman Ron Barber has an unbeatable lead over Republican challenger Martha McSally in CD-2.

Indeed, it looked unlikely Thursday morning that McSally could take over Barber’s lead, although it was small, the number of ballots remaining to be counted was running low.

See also:
–Ron Barber Up 709 Votes Over Martha McSally; Uncounted Ballots Starting to Run Low
–Ron Barber Currently Leading Martha McSally by a Grand Total of 654 Votes
–Ron Barber Now Leads Martha McSally
–Gabrielle Giffords’ Aide Ron Barber Elected to Fill Former Congresswoman’s Seat

Now that more of those ballots have been counted, Barber’s pretty much running away with it.

Barber led McSally by 709 votes mid-day Thursday, after all the CD-2 votes from Cochise County had been counted.

By Friday night, Barber was up by more than 1,409 votes, and at the time of this post, Barber’s up by 2,371. There are fewer than 1,000 votes remaining to be counted, according to numbers released yesterday by the Pima County Recorder’s Office.

The Associated Press called the race for Barber over the weekend, and McSally has already conceded the race to Barber.

Today [Saturday] I called Congressman Barber to congratulate him on his victory. It was a hard fought campaign and I’m proud of the race we ran with integrity, honor, authenticity, and grace.

While ultimately we didn’t get the results we hoped for, I’m amazed at the historic nature of what we did with the odds stacked so high against us. Across this district, people of all political stripes who voted for President Obama and Richard Carmona also voted for me. As the single highest Republican vote getter in the district, over 141,000 people believed in our message of putting leadership and independent thinking ahead of party politics.

While this particular battle is over, I still have a fire in my belly to make a difference and serve our community and country. I look forward to seeing where that call to duty takes me next.

Barber was first elected to Congress this summer, in a special election to replace retiring Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in last year’s Tucson shooting, in which Jared Loughner killed six people and injured 13.

Barber — then one of Giffords’ aides — was one of those 13 people injured.

With Barber’s re-election, Arizona will be sending more Democrats to Congress than Republicans — 5 D’s, and 4 R’s.