It's a tight race that's coming down to the absentee ballots. Jaclyn Cangro has more from Troy where the Rensselaer County executive race still hasn't been decided. 

TROY, N.Y. -- For the second time this year, Steve McLaughlin has declared election victory against his opponent -- first in the primaries, now in the general. And for the second time, his opponent isn't conceding just yet.

With Election Day behind us, McLaughlin is pretty happy.

"Good, feel great," he said. "Feel a little tired, but that's okay. Energized in a way."

But despite McLaughlin declaring victory, his Democratic challenger, Andrea Smyth, isn't backing down.

"We want to empower the voters. We want to let them know we value their vote," she said.

Smyth is behind by about 950 votes. To win, she has to get a majority of the absentee ballots.

"For us to get this close, there's no way to predict what is in those absentee ballots," Smyth said.

McLaughlin disagrees.

"I mean, we're up by 1,000. There's 1,700 absentees out there. Statistically, that's almost impossible to overcome," he said.

Rensselaer County has a tendency to vote for Republican county executives. Both candidates have their own theories as to why the vote was closer than many expected.

"It's fantastic, and it clearly shows that our message resonated with people," Smyth said, "because I do believe that people chose the most qualified candidate over their party affiliation."

"I think what many people overlooked was the strength of the get-out-the-vote effort against the constitutional conventions," McLaughlin said. "So given that the unions did a really good job, actually, of driving their members out to vote, many of those members are Democrats."

Absentee ballots will begin to be counted on Monday. According to Smyth, they'll begin with East Greenbush.