After a seven-hour recount by the Secretary of State’s Office on Monday, officials reaffirmed Republican Eric Brakey’s victory in Maine Senate District 20.

Eric Brakey Eric Brakey

The recount trimmed 16 votes off Brakey’s tally while adding two votes to the total for Democrat Bettyann Sheats.

But Brakey won by a 146-vote margin out of 18,243 votes cast, according to Julie Flynn, deputy secretary of state. Among them were 261 votes left blank for the Senate race.

The final vote was 9,064 for Brakey and 8,918 for Sheats.

Senate District 20 covers Auburn, Durham, New Gloucester and Poland.

Brakey and Sheats are Auburn residents and former lawmakers.

Brakey held the state Senate seat from 2014 until 2018, when he opted to run for U.S. Senate. He lost to U.S. Sen. Angus King, an incumbent independent, but captured many more votes than Democrat Zak Ringelstein.

Two years later, Brakey ran for a U.S. House seat but lost the three-way GOP primary in the 2nd District to Dale Crafts of Lisbon.