With the latest tallies showing Candy McCullough’s lead holding steady in a race for a seat on Vashon’s fire commission, Joe Ulatoski, her challenger, said he called her on Wednesday “and congratulated her on her victory.”

“I told her if there were anything I could do to help (Vashon Island Fire & Rescue) continue in its pursuit of excellence, just let me know,” he said.

Though initial results in the race for Position 4 on Vashon Island Fire & Rescue’s board showed Joe Ulatoski in the lead, later returns were weighted toward incumbent McCullough, giving her a lead she has maintained for several days. By the end of the day Wednesday she was 63 votes ahead, with 50.59 percent of the total or 2,117 votes. Ulatoski had 49.08 percent with 2,054 votes.

Ulatoski was ahead by a little more than 70 votes when the first tallies were reported on Tuesday, Nov. 8. A week later McCullough gained a slight lead, which continued to grow. Updated results will be announced daily, with final results on Nov. 29 when the election is certified.

On Sunday McCullough said it was looking good for her, but she wasn’t declaring a win quite yet. “It’s really not over till it’s over,” she said.

Ulatoski agreed it was unlikely he would regain the lead, but he still wanted to see what the next few days of results show. About 75 new votes were added to Friday’s totals, and about 70 were added on Monday.

“We should know by Wednesday,” Ulatoski said. “Until we start seeing the number of votes (coming in) way down, I’m not ready to concede.”

On Wednesday, he called The Beachcomber to say he’d left a message for McCullough congratulating her. “There’s always a possibility that there’s a whole bunch of ballots stuck in a mail chute somewhere, but it’s very remote,” he said.

Ulatoski added that he enjoyed the race, adding, “Now I’ll start looking for other windmills to joust at.”

About 4,700 ballots from Vashon have been counted, a 60 percent return.