In an e-mail to supporters on Friday, Spokane County commissioner candidate Steve Salvatori said a recount is likely in the primary battle for commissioner.

But he added that he doesn't expect to be in the running.

"We made a valiant comeback effort on the Thursday ballot count, reducing our gap from 4 percent to 2 percent. But our hat is off to Jeff Holy, who did even better, and is now within 150 votes of Al French (we are 500 votes back). If the final ballots which will be counted Monday, hold true to their ratios from Thursday, Jeff will catch Al, and we will end up 300 – 400 votes behind. It looks like Jeff and Al may end up so close, that it may trigger a recount," said Salvatori's message to supporters.

The county election's office will count almost all of the remaining estimated 10,000 ballots today. About 3,600 of those are in the county's 3rd County Commissioner District where French, Holy and Salvatori were on the ballot along with Democratic incumbent Bonnie Mager, who easily won the primary and a spot on the November ballot.

French's lead for second place over Holy fell from 434 to 158 from the first count on Tuesday to the most recent tally on Thursday.

To trigger a recount, French's and Holy's tallies must be within .5 percent of each other without considering the tallies of other candidates, said Spokane County Auditor Vicky Dalton. As of Friday, 9,172 people had voted for either French of Holy. French had 4,665 of those votes, giving him 50.9 percent of the ballot that voted for him or Holy. Since Holy has only 49.1 percent of those votes, the gap currently is well above the .5 percent required for a recount.

If the gap falls below .25 percent, the ballots must be counted by hand.

Here's a map showing the areas won by the GOP candidates in the primary.

To read Salvatori's full message keep reading this entry.

Hi Guys,

Thanks to everyone who could come to our election night party at the Entrepreneurial Center.  As the final ballots should be counted on Monday, here is the latest situation.

We made a valiant comeback effort on the Thursday ballot count, reducing our gap from 4% to 2%.  But our hat is off to Jeff Holy, who did even better, and is now within 150 votes of Al French (we are 500 votes back).  If the final ballots which will be counted Monday, hold true to their ratios from Thursday, Jeff will catch Al, and we will end up 300 – 400 votes behind.  It looks like Jeff and Al may end up so close, that it may trigger a recount.

We have been pulling our campaign signs back in, because it does not appear that we will generate enough votes to close our gap.  Commissioner Mager will face either Jeff Holy or Al French in the General Election.  We would have issued a formal concession press release, but I don’t know who to congratulate yet, although clearly, congratulations are in order for all three on a race well run.

I have enjoyed every single minute of every single day of this campaign.  I have no regrets, other than I was not able to bring a victory to everyone who supported, volunteered, and contributed to our campaign.  I think that our race was the most positive of all of the contested races this primary, and I feel that is a testimony to all four of the county commissioner candidates.

Since we won’t really know the final results until Monday, we will wait to then to make our formal statement.  But I want to thank all of you for your help and encouragement in the campaign, and I wanted to let everyone know how much I enjoyed the entire process.   

And thanks again to all of you, for making this such a wonderful experience for me!