Ongoing Arizona's CD-5 vote count and Elizabeth Rogers' victory.

The vote count continues in the CD-5 race. Harry Mitchell is ahead by a large enough margin that the outstanding votes would be very unlikely change that.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Rogers, Hayworth's 2004 opponent, won her race for Justice of the Peace.

Here are two links with the info:

1. Hayworth holds out for final count

J.D. Hayworth, who ended up on the short end of the vote count on election night, refused to concede defeat in his re-election bid for Arizona’s 5th Congressional District on Wednesday.

Hayworth declined interview requests with the Tribune, but in television and radio interviews the six-term Republican said he planned to wait out the final count.

Election officials said more than 250,000 ballots cast in Maricopa County have yet to be counted. They were unable to immediately determine how many of those ballots were from the 5th district, which includes Scottsdale, Tempe, Ahwatukee Foothills, Fountain Hills and surrounding areas.

Unofficial results late Wednesday had Democratic challenger Harry Mitchell ahead with 50.5 percent, followed by Hayworth with 46.2 percent and Libertarian Warren Severin with 3.3 percent.

Mitchell led by 5,955 votes among 140,819 votes counted so far.

Note: It's estimated to be between 50-70k 30-50k votes oustanding for CD-5. Hayworth would have to pull over 60% of those votes in order to close the gap, which seems unlikely. Most pundits are, like myself, feeling pretty comfortable with calling this race for Mitchell.


2. Hayworth's 2004 Opponent wins Justice Race

Tedski also brings us this interesting note:

Salt in the Wound

As if things weren't bad enough for J. D. Hayworth, in addition to losing his race, he had to watch as his 2004 opponent, Elizabeth Rogers, won a term as a Justice of the Peace in Maricopa County.

Residents of CD-5 may recall that Elizabeth Rogers was a 25-year-old neophyte who ran against Hayworth simply to keep him from running unopposed, and to demonstrate that he was less popular than the conventional wisdom was reporting. She spent less than $5k in her 2004 race and earned 38% of the vote. In the race, Hayworth spent $1.3 million and got 59% of the vote.

Rogers' showing was an early indication of the dissatisfaction with Hayworth and some have said that it set the stage for a more viable Dem candidate to run this year. It was also a trial run (no pun intended) for her campaign this year as Justice of the Peace, which she has now won.

Congratulations, Elizabeth, on your victory (and thank you for your part in challenging and eventually unseating Hayworth)!