Republican candidate Mike Martucci is declaring a win in the race for the 42nd Senate District seat.

Martucci is leading incumbent Sen. Jen Metzger by 11,000 votes.

Although there are thousands of uncounted ballots remaining, the father of three from Wayward says they’ve factored that in and are comfortable declaring the race.

“The Election Day results speak for themselves,” says Martucci. “We go into the absentee ballot count with almost 11,000 lead and while there are about 25,000 that remain, we are confident the results we saw on Election Day will remain.“

Meanwhile, Sen. Metzger refuses to give up the race and says outstanding ballots are overwhelmingly from Democratic voters. Metzger further noted the process of counting absentee ballots is expected to take several weeks.