LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – With 78 of 83 counties reporting on the Michigan Secretary of State’s election website, it’s not official yet but as of 9:30 a.m. this morning U.S. Representative Democratic Elissa Slotkin has taken the lead in the state’s Senate race to be the successor of outgoing Democratic U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow.

Rogers had held the lead for most of the race, but overnight, Slotkin surged ahead, erasing his advantage.

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With 97.84% of the votes counted, both the Detroit News and M-Live has Slotkin ahead of former U.S. Representative Mike Rogers with Slotkin getting 48.6% of the vote (2,664,595 votes) vs. Rogers’ 48.3% (2,652,314). NBC News has the numbers a little lower and calls the race “too close to call” with more than 200,000 votes outstanding.

High stakes and high spending.

The race has been called one of the most competitive and expensive Senate contests in the nation with an estimated $141 million spent by outside groups and another $52 million spent by the campaigns.

With the U.S. Senate switching over control to Republican hands in January, according to the Associated Press, a win for Slotkin would mean the gap between the parties in the upper chamber wouldn’t be quite as large as the GOP had hoped for. A win for Rogers would give Michigan a Republican senator which hasn’t been seen in the state since Spence Abraham in 1994.

Candidates biding their time.

Rogers had told supporters at his watch party at the Suburban Collection Showplace convention center in Novi early in the morning to brace for a long night and added, “Let’s do this. Let’s keep our spirits high. It’s going to be up. It’s going to be down.”

Slotkin had delivered remarks at an election watch party early in the morning around midnight in Detroit. She thanked all Michiganders who ran for office and said it’s been a very long and heated campaign. She added, “Over the next few days, the results will come into focus and the task before us will be to come together – to reach out to people who might not always agree with, to focus on our future as a state and as a country – because no matter how passionately we disagree, first and foremost, we are Michiganders.”

As of this morning, neither candidate has taken to social media to address the tight race, leaving followers in suspense about their latest thoughts on the close competition.