A small crowd gathered in the Assembly chambers at City Hall on Friday night to watch three machines process early, absentee and questioned ballots. Some attendees had popcorn in hand from the nearby movie theater.<\/p>\n
District 2 Assembly candidate Wade Bryson wasn’t eating.<\/p>\n
Bryson cycled between standing and pacing as he closely watched election officials count 2,533 ballots. After Election Day on Tuesday, Bryson held a slim 122-vote lead<\/a> over Garrett Schoenberger for a District 2 seat. Schoenberger wasn’t there Friday, as he enjoyed his honeymoon.<\/p>\n Bryson stayed stoic as the numbers were slowly unveiled Friday night, but when the final (unofficial) numbers came through and showed that he hung on — winning by a 128-vote margin — the emotion he’d been hanging onto since Tuesday came pouring out.<\/p>\n “A lot of the candidates mentioned the emotional comedown of having the election over with, but for me to not have an answer, it just kept the nerves fried, but yet I didn’t have any adrenaline keeping me going. It was just a difficult couple of days,” Bryson said.<\/p>\n Bryson hugged his wife Christine after talking with media members Friday and came away with tears in his eyes.<\/p>\n “Got the emotion out that I couldn’t get out for two days,” Bryson said as he wiped the tears from his eyes.<\/p>\n