Obenshain to concede Virginia attorney general's race on Wednesday in Richmond Herring had significantly widened his slim lead over Obenshain in a statewide recount that began Monday and was scheduled to finish Wednesday. The race to succeed Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R) had turned into a protracted nail-biter to determine not only who serves as Virginia's top law-enforcement official but also control of the evenly split state Senate. Herring and Obenshain are state senators, and a win by either would have prompted a special election. Because Herring's Loudoun County district is seen as highly competitive, his win could cause Democrats to lose power in the evenly divided Senate. The GOP has a wide margin in the House. An affirmed victory by Herring would also seal the Democrats" sweep of statewide offices this year, the first in nearly a generation; he will join Gov.-elect Terry McAuliffe and Lt. Gov.-elect Ralph Northam. Obenshain's decision a day after Herring's lead grew to more than 810 votes, with 73 percent of ballots across the state recounted, according to Herring's campaign. Fewer than 120 ballots had been "challenged," the campaign said, meaning recount officials could not agree on how they should be counted. They forwarded the ballots to a special recount court in Richmond that began its work Wednesday. The Democrat's lead was between 811 and 866, depending on how many of the challenged ballots are ultimately counted, Herring attorney Marc Elias said in a conference call with reporters Tuesday. "We continue to gain margin at a steady pace, and we expect to continue to do so through the rest of the day and through the rest of the recount," Elias said. We remain confident that Mark Herring will be declared the winner of the recount. Both campaigns dispatched legions of volunteers to courthouses across the state to keep tabs on the recount. Herring's campaign issued updated tallies through conference calls with reporters and Twitter. Obenshain's campaign did not announce running tallies but did not dispute the numbers issued by the opposing campaign. In late November, the State Board of Elections declared Herring the winner by just 165 votes out of more than 2.2 million cast, a margin so slim it entitled Obenshain to a government-funded recount. If the 800-vote lead holds, the race will lose its distinction as the closest statewide election in Virginia history. The record-holder is the 2005 contest for attorney general between then-Del. Robert F. McDonnell and Sen. R. Creigh Deeds (D-Bath). McDonnell won that race by 360 votes. Election officials in three jurisdictions got a head start on their recounts Monday: Fairfax County because of its large size, and Alexandria and Chesapeake because their voting machines required them to recount by hand. Their counterparts across the state began Tuesday. All of them were given until Wednesday - the deadline for some localities was set as late as 11:59 p.m. - to recount the ballots. The news of Obenshain's decision was slow to reach the Richmond courtroom where the two sides were arguing over challenged ballots. The panel reviewing the ballots was scheduled to meet Wednesday, Thursday and possibly Friday, and was expected to announce its result by Friday. Under state law, the loser could also contest the result in an unusual joint session of the General Assembly but would have had to do so by Monday. The attorneys first learned of the news by looking at their phones roughly 90 minutes after the hearing began. They continued arguing over the ballots for an additional half-hour, until Obenshain attorney William H. Hurd stood and asked for a brief recess. "We need to talk," he said, gesturing to Herring's attorneys. Lawyers for the two sides agreed to recess until after Obenshain's press conference, when they were expected to return to court and bring the recount to an official halt. Obenshain's campaign had complained about how Fairfax handled provisional ballots, which are used when voters lack identification or go to the wrong polling place - complaints that could lay the groundwork for asking the General Assembly to decide the election or call a new one. That sort of challenge would have to be premised on claims that the election was deeply flawed. Some provisional voters in the heavily Democratic county got four extra days than those elsewhere in the state to appear in person to argue that their ballots should be counted. Obenshain's campaign said the extra time was unfair to voters elsewhere, but the board said it acted legally. Obenshain's campaign also said this month that Fairfax officials misplaced some used ballots and blank ballots after the election, belatedly turning them in to the Circuit Court clerk. Brian W. Schoeneman, secretary of Fairfax County's Board of Elections, confirmed that account but said the ballots were stored in a locked cart with voting machines. Herring gained eight of those votes and Obenshain gained five, according to a running tally posted on a dry-erase board near the jury assembly room, where most the recounting was being done.