I know that this seems to be a long time, but in fairness Republican candidate Martha McSally’s final lead of 161 votes over incumbent Democrat [mc_name name=’Rep. Ron Barber (D-AZ)’ chamber=’house’ mcid=’B001279′ ] in AZ-02 was well within the parameters to justify both a machine recount and a spot check hand-recount of selected precincts in the District.  Reading between the lines… it’s widely if quietly expected that McSally won.  To the point where she’s already been assigned a position on the Armed Services and Homeland Security committees in the House.  Possibly this was slightly premature: but there truly does not seem to have been any shenanigans going on in this particular district.  And a razor-thin win is still a win.

And with that, I believe that we will be done with the 2014 election cycle.  But don’t worry!  The Cook Political Report has already started up with the listings for 2016! …Because this never ends, of course. And I’m not even upset about that: politics is what we do to keep people from setting disputes with fire and the sword.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: It will, of course, be an absolute firestorm at this point if [mc_name name=’Rep. Ron Barber (D-AZ)’ chamber=’house’ mcid=’B001279′ ] was declared to be the winner. I will be genuinely surprised, though, if that happens: there hasn’t been any sign up to this point that the recount was going to meaningfully alter the results, and there not really any specific way that shenanigans can occur at this point.  But the recount does have to happen, which is why fundraising for this election is still going on: and I suppose that, given the closeness of the race, somebody else might feel bad about suggesting that Barber should just concede now and get it over with.  But I’m not somebody else, so: Barber should just concede now and get it over with.