ATLANTA _ The clash over the unsettled race for Georgia governor heightened Saturday as Republican Brian Kemp said the trickle of provisional ballots counted this weekend made it impossible for him to lose the race, while Democrat Stacey Abrams said there's a larger number of unreported votes.
The dynamics of the race have remained the same for days, with Kemp maintaining a roughly 63,000-vote lead over Abrams after nearly all ballots have been counted.
The more important margin, however, is 26,000: That's roughly the vote the Democrat needs to net to force the contest into a Dec. 4 runoff.
The focus is on the remaining provisional ballots and other votes still yet to be counted. The secretary of state's office _ recently vacated by Kemp _ reported 21,190 provisional ballots, many of them yet uncounted. There is also a maximum of 3,291 remaining military absentee ballots.
The Abrams campaign asserts that the total number of uncounted votes is actually about 10,000 votes higher, including roughly 4,000 early votes and vote-by-mail ballots it has identified.
And it provided the Atlanta Journal Constitution with a county-by-county tally it conducted with local elections offices that showed nearly 27,000 provisional votes.
The biggest gap between state figures and the Abrams tally is in Gwinnett County, where the Democrat's campaign says a scan of county data showed 3,500 more provisional ballots.
A spokeswoman for the secretary of state's office said its account of the provisional ballot numbers were provided by the counties and are accurate.
If there's a window for Abrams, it's narrowing.
At least 89 counties have certified their votes, and 118 counties have reported some results from provisional ballots. Roughly half the provisional ballots were rejected, and those that have reported have provided Abrams a net boost of about 100 votes.
About 40 counties had yet to report their final provisional ballots by Saturday afternoon, including many larger left-leaning counties where Abrams stands to gain votes.
The Kemp campaign declared anew that "the race is over" and Kemp is the governor-elect.
"It is mathematically impossible for Stacey Abrams to win, force a runoff or trigger a recount," Kemp spokesman Ryan Mahoney said. "Georgia voters have spoken. It's time for Abrams to listen and concede immediately."
That line was echoed by a range of Georgia Republican leaders and conservative figures, and amplified by President Donald Trump, who demanded on Twitter that Abrams concede.
That's not likely to happen anytime soon. Abrams has repeatedly said she will continue her campaign until all ballots are counted, and announced a legal team that's already filed a successful lawsuit requiring Dougherty County to accept a few dozen late-arriving absentee ballots.
