James campaign keeps litigation option open as Peters lead builds in tight Senate race

DETROIT (FOX 2) - Almost 24 hours since polls closed in Michigan, the race for the U.S. Senate between Gary Peters and John James is still too close to call, despite the Republican challenger's campaign claiming victory early.

With almost every precinct reporting on the race, both Peters and James are hovering around the 49%  mark with the incumbent Senator holding a slight edge by 15,000 votes. As of 6:30 p.m. Peters has 2.62 million votes to James' 2.60 with 97% of the vote in.

An advisor to James, Stu Sandler, said the campaign is "keeping their options open" regarding possible litigation.

The vote is expected to be completed Wednesday evening at some point, but exactly when is not known.

A surrogate for James questioned the validity of the results 

"When we heard that there were 5.2 million votes and John James won, we accepted the victory. At that point, additional votes got added, there was a lack of integrity and that's when we started to realize there was a lack of a challenge to the process. Then we heard about 35,000 votes that came in through a pallet. These all are the irregularities that added up through the day," Stu Sandler, a GOP political consultant.

President Donald Trump said that Michigan was trying to keep James out of the senate by "finding" votes. 

Peters said late Tuesday that he knew the vote would take a significant amount of time to get all the votes counted.

James already made waves two years ago when he challenged Debbie Stabenow for the U.S. Senate. Now he’s taking on Democrat for Michigan’s other Senate seat.

Peters has almost 30 years as an elected official and ran for his first office in 1991. James is a political outsider who made waves two years ago when he made that race close.

Peters' campaign says James' campaign claiming victory is an attempt to disenfranchise voters.