As Jazz pointed out on Saturday, the saga of the NY-22 race seemed to be at an end when Judge DelConte decided to certify Republican Claudia Tenney as the winner. However, there was always the possibility that Democrat Anthony Brindisi would continue to fight the certification county by county in the appellate court. He had also indicated that he might demand a full hand recount of the entire race. All of this would have consumed several more weeks. But today, a short time after the state certified the results, Brindisi called Tenney to concede. Here’s a portion of his statement:

Today I congratulated Claudia Tenney and offered to make the transition process as smooth as possible on behalf of our community. I hope that she will be a Representative for all the people of this district, not just those that agree with her point of view, and work with members of both parties to heal the deep divisions that exist in our country.

It has been the honor of a lifetime serving my hometown, the place I grew up and am raising my family. Unfortunately, this election and counting process was riddled with errors, inconsistencies and systematic violations of state and federal election laws. My one disappointment is that the court did not see fit to grant us a recount. Sadly, we may never know how many legal voters were turned away at the polls or ballots not counted due to the ineptitude of the boards of election, especially in Oneida County. My hope is some authority steps in and investigates the massive disenfranchisement of voters that took place during this election…

It is time to close the book on this election and focus on building a better community and more united country for our children.

It was arguably time to close the book on this election several weeks ago but Brindisi and his team of six lawyers clearly believed they could maneuver a judge into counting more votes in areas they were likely to win. As I pointed out more than a week ago, the judge eventually decided to ignore lawyers for both camps and instead asked Oneida County to recanvas more than 1,000 votes that hadn’t been counted because of an error by the DMV. That process wound up adding nearly 100 votes to Tenney’s lead, which was clearly not what Brindisi was hoping for.

Even as recently as Saturday evening, one of Brindisi’s lawyers was still suggesting a hand recount was necessary.

Yes, there needs to be a recount in #NY22 where the two candidates are separated by 109 votes and the judge hearing the case wrote that there are uncounted votes due to "systemic violations of state and federal law." pic.twitter.com/eIgncJQaSC

— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) February 7, 2021

But today, Tenney gracefully accepted the concession and thanked Brindisi for his call:

I really appreciate Anthony's call today and thank him for his service. He graciously offered to help ensure a smooth transition and I look forward to working with him over the coming days to complete that process on behalf of everyone in NY22. https://t.co/3XEDKZh3TJ

— Claudia Tenney (@claudiatenney) February 8, 2021

All of which means this is finally over. Tenney becomes the 15th flip for the GOP in the House, though the NY Times has yet to update the page. So the final tally is 222 Democrats and 213 Republicans.

This race, with a margin of 109 votes was not the closest. The Iowa-2 race was certified with Republican Mariannete Miller-Meeks leading by six votes. She was seated weeks ago on a provisional basis but Democrat Rita Hart has appealed directly to Congress to review the race.