According to an article posted by Charles Lane and JD Allen of WSHU, the special election that was held to find a replacement for disgraced former New York Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos was close – in fact, it was actually too close to call.

Skelos, along with his son, was convicted on federal corruption charges late last year, and the two candidates vying for his seat are personal injury attorney Chris McGrath of Hewlett Harbor for the Republican side and former federal prosecutor Todd Kaminsky of Long Beach for the Democrats. As of early this morning, Kaminsky was ahead of McGrath by approximately 800 votes.

Election workers will now be tasked with hand-counting about 2,500 paper ballots, according to McGrath.

While McGrath was backed by the Service Employees International Union, Kaminsky received support from the President himself. Though, according to WSHU’s article, Kaminsky was disappointed that he was simply too busy to put as much time into his campaign as he might have liked, saying that “[his] assembly district is a third of the area,” which meant that there were “a lot of people [and places that he didn’t get to meet],” especially when, as a current state assemblyman, he is “in session in Albany.”

The ultimate outcome of this race will be an important one as the final vote has the power to change who has the majority of seats in the Senate. A win for McGrath would mean a Republican majority while a win for Kaminsky would allow the Democrats to reclaim it.