GOP Candidate to Seek Virginia Recount

Republican J. Marshall Coleman said Wednesday that he intends to seek a recount of the closest governor’s race in Virginia history, but Democrat L. Douglas Wilder was already relishing the historical dimensions of his apparent victory.

“It starts coming home to you, something happened last night,” Wilder said at a news conference the morning after he claimed victory as the nation’s first black elected governor.

Wilder was clinging to a lead of 5,500 votes out of more than 1.7 million cast. With all 1,967 precincts reporting, unofficial results showed Wilder with 896,283 votes to Coleman’s 890,750.

Because the margin was within one-half of 1%, Coleman has the right under state law to demand a recount. At a news conference Wednesday in McLean, Va., he said he would do so.

“The outcome, although still in doubt, has given me a responsibility, for plainly I am the trustee of the votes of more than 880,000 Virginians who supported me in this contest,” Coleman said. “I have a responsibility to them and to all Virginians to ensure the person with the most votes is declared the winner.”

The State Board of Elections will meet Nov. 27 to certify the results of Tuesday’s vote, which board Secretary Susan Fitz-Hugh said was the closest contest for governor ever in Virginia.

Coleman will have until Dec. 7 to officially request a recount. Fitz-Hugh said as far as she knew no such recount had ever been conducted in a statewide election. She had no estimate of how long it would take to tally the votes a second time.

In another close election Tuesday, New York voters elected David N. Dinkins as the city’s first black mayor. Returns from 99% of the precincts gave Dinkins 50% of the vote to 48% for Republican Rudolph W. Giuliani.

“I got a pretty fair percentage of the white vote, and I think that’s very important,” said Dinkins, who pledged to bring racial harmony to the city.

Seattle voters, meanwhile, chose Norman Rice as that city’s first black mayor. He hit the streets Wednesday to thank the voters and start healing a city that he said is divided over school busing and the quality of public education.

“I think there is legitimate anger and frustration in the city over education,” Rice said before he began walking tours of downtown and residential neighborhoods to shake hands and greet residents.

Rice, a three-term City Council member, defeated his neighbor and one-time political ally, three-term City Attorney Douglas N. Jewett, by a 58% to 42% margin.

Rice, 46, said he would try to form a partnership between city government and the schools to defuse tensions that rose over the “Save Our Schools” initiative, which sought to end mandatory busing for school desegregation.

That initiative, which had become a central issue in the mayoral campaign, was too close to call Wednesday, trailing by 100 votes.