Rep. Bean Trailing By 291 Votes To Speak To Reporters Wednesday

WAUKEGAN - Three-term Congresswoman Melissa Bean tonight is flying home to her district in northeast Illinois having come-up just short in her re-election bid. Today, the last of the ballots were counted - absentees and provisional ballots - in portions of Cook, Lake and McHenry Counties. Out of over 200,000 votes cast, Bean trails by a scant 291 votes to Republican chalenger Joe Walsh.

Walsh this weekend, confident that he would prevail, was in Washington to attend 'freshman orientation' for newly elected US House members. He has been unavailable for comment today.

Tomorrow, Bean has called a news conference in Schaumburg to discuss the results and what she may do next.

Here are the vote totals including today's counting of absentee and provisional ballots:

         Bean (D)           Walsh (R)          Scheurer (G)

Cook County         30,025              23,848                 1,415

Lake County          52,025             55,148                 3,507

McHenry County    15,774             19,119                 1,573

TOTALS                 97,824             98,115                 6,495