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Republican Richard Snelgrove has taken a 6,666 vote lead over Democratic challenger Catherine Kanter in the race for a pivotal at large seat on the Salt Lake County Council, currently controlled by a 5-4 GOP majority.
The one-term incumbent trailed Kanter by nearly 4,400 votes on election night. But Snelgrove received about 11,000 more votes than this rival in two batches of late-arriving ballots counted by the clerk's office and released on Thursday and Friday.
That unofficially gave him 51.1 percent of the votes to 48.9 percent for Kanter.
"Needless to say, I'm pleased," the 61-year-old Snelgrove, a business owner, said Friday afternoon. However, more than 90,000 votes are left to be tabulated before the official canvass on Nov. 22, according to County Clerk Sherrie Swensen.
Snelgrove expects to get the lion's share of the remaining votes, believing from his analysis of the returns so far that Democrats voted earlier than Republicans who were "still trying to decide who to vote for on the top of their ticket and holding onto their ballots longer."
Kanter, a 49-year-old attorney, said she was disappointed to fall behind after holding the initial lead but remained optimistic that "next week we'll bounce back."
Her confidence is based on an evaluation of the numbers that suggested to her that votes were being counted by congressional district, and that a district more favorable to her remained to be added in.
"Obviously it's always nice to be ahead," Kanter added, "but these numbers are volatile."
In the county mayor's race, Republican challenger Dave Robinson moved a little closer to incumbent Mayor Ben McAdams but remained well off the pace, still trailing the Democratic incumbent 60 percent to 40 percent.
District 6 council member Max Burdick widened his lead over Democrat Abigail Wright (56 percent to 44 percent).
That same spread continued to favor Proposition A, the proposal to issue $90 million in bonds for parks and recreation projects in the valley.