Treasure Coast residents might not know who won District 18 between Rep. Allen West and Patrick Murphy until Wednesday or Thursday.

At 12:45 a.m, Murphy was leading West by 974 votes. Percentage-wise that’s 50.16% to 49.84%.

“If it looks like I’m smiling, that’s because I’m up 151 votes,” Murphy told his supporters. Murphy predicted the more precincts coming in from St. Lucie County, “the more we are going to win by, so keep your fingers crossed!”

Murphy left the stage, telling his supporters, “don’t go anywhere, it’s only going to get more exciting, OK? Thank you.”

Murphy reported that he had taken the lead from the Double Tree Palm Beach Gardens hotel.

State Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, gave the West crowd a final update at 11:45 p.m. West never left a separate room himself at the Hutchinson Island Marriott Beach Resort & Marina in Stuart, where he watched the results with his family. Nor did his campaign did not comment on the race.

“There are about 30,000 votes, absentee ballots in Palm Beach County, not all in this congressional district, but in the entire county,” Negron said. “They’re the ones that have to be manually done because of some errors. So we will not have those final numbers in tonight.”

“In addition, there are several precincts in St. Lucie County that are delayed and they’re still counting. We will not have those numbers until tomorrow. …in all likelihood, we will not have final results in this race until at least tomorrow, or perhaps even Thursday.”

If the vote is within .5 percent it triggers an automatic recount.

–TCPalm/FLDemocracy2012

Tags | Allen West, Patrick Murphy