O'Neill Burke still holds slight lead over Harris in Cook County state's attorney race

Clayton Harris III and Eileen O'Neill Burke answer reporters’ questions after a debate during the Cook County state’s attorney’s race at ABC7 studios in February. — Clayton Harris III and Eileen O’Neill Burke answer reporters’ questions after a debate during the Cook County state’s attorney’s race at ABC7 studios in February.

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One full week after the polls closed, the Democratic primary for Cook County state’s attorney remained unresolved on Tuesday, with Eileen O’Neill Burke and Clayton Harris III still separated by a razor-thin margin and neither declaring victory nor conceding defeat.

With the latest batch of mail-in votes doing little to change the landscape of the contest, both campaigns were mulling their options as they closely monitored the counting of votes that are still arriving, but at a slower pace.

“We are prepared for a range of outcomes, including a potential recount,” said Alaina Hampton, Harris’ campaign manager, adding that they will “determine the path forward at the appropriate time.”

O’Neill Burke’s campaign is in a similar holding pattern as the April 2 deadline to certify a winner looms, and the number of mail-in ballots dwindles.

“We are prepared for any next step,” an O’Neill Burke campaign spokesperson said in a statement.

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After Tuesday’s count, O’Neill Burke led Harris by 1,598 votes. That represents a net shift of just 45 votes from Monday, when the two were separated by 1,643. The mail ballots trickling in since March 19 have taken chunks out of O’Neill Burke’s lead, but those chunks keep getting smaller.

Based on the unofficial results, O’Neill Burke, a retired appellate court justice, now leads Harris, a university lecturer, 50.15% to 49.85%, a margin that changed only by hundredths of a percentage point since Monday.

Shortly after the polls closed Harris trailed by about 10,000 votes. By Saturday, only 4,771 separated the two Democrats, dropping down to 2,015 votes after the city was done with its count Sunday.

On Tuesday, the Cook County clerk’s office said it tallied about 800 additional mail ballots. The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners said it processed roughly 500. Those numbers were in the thousands a few days ago.

City and suburban election officials plan to keep counting mail ballots until April 2, as long as they were postmarked no later than March 19.

Chicago election officials said there are 53,712 outstanding mail-in ballots that have not been returned. But officials don’t expect all of those to be completed and returned.

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City election officials have had to issue a couple of corrections to their reported numbers in the last week.

On Saturday, they announced that roughly 10,000 votes were added to the unofficial count. Max Bever, spokesperson for the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, said that he had mistakenly left out ballots received by mail on the evening of March 18, a day before the primary, in previous totals.

And on Monday, Bever said a board staff member initially logged the incorrect number of provisional ballots received on election day, reporting 2,882 ballots instead of 1,882.

Staff performed a hand count and determined there were 1,991 provisional ballots from election day and early voting, he said.

O’Neill Burke and Harris are vying to succeed Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, who opted not to seek a third term.

Foxx said last week that the tight margin between O’Neill Burke and Harris shows there is “not a mandate, if you will, to roll things back” from her approach.

Democrats have held the office since 1996, making the winner of the Democratic primary a heavy favorite in the general election. Whoever wins the primary will face Republican former Ald. Bob Fioretti and Libertarian Andrew Charles Kopinski in November.

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