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A state legislative candidate who already conceded may be headed to the Capitol after all.

And her opponent, who already got a check from Clean Elections for the general election, may not have a race to spend it on.

Just 10 votes separate two District 26 House primary opponents, Marilyn Zerull and Trent Humphries, for a spot on the November ballot.

Pima and Pinal county election workers said they won't finish counting the rest of the votes until Tuesday.

On Wednesday, when Pima County temporarily stopped counting votes, Humphries led Zerull by 131 votes. But on Friday, after the county ran another batch of ballots through its computers, Zerull was up by 10.

Even after all the votes are counted on Tuesday, it might not be over. If the margin remains as close as it is now, it would trigger an automatic recount under state law.

Vic Williams was the clear first-place finisher in the Republican primary for the District 26 House seat, with Humphries and Zerull fighting it out for the party's second slot on the general election ballot.

Even though Pima County still had nine precincts and more than 11,000 early ballots still to count, Humphries' 131-vote lead earlier in the week was enough for Clean Elections to send him a check for about $19,000 to get his general election campaign started.

"It's a hard call, but we err on the side of the candidate, because they want to be able to campaign," Clean Elections Director Todd Lang said.

If a candidate leads by more than 100 votes the day after the election, the state puts the check in the mail.

If it turns out the person did not actually win, he or she would have to return the money. But if money already had been spent in good faith on a legitimate campaign expense, Lang said, the state would not require it to be returned.

Fortunately for taxpayers, Humphries wasn't comfortable cashing the check. He knew it was close, and Pima County still had a long way to go to finish counting. So the check is still sitting on his counter at home.

For her part, Zerull sent an e-mail to supporters Thursday thanking them for their support and urging them to support Humphries and Williams against Democrats Don Jorgensen and Nancy Young Wright in November.

"Now we must shift gears and prepare for the general election by getting out our message of fiscal responsibility and conservative values," she wrote.

"I encourage all my supporters to back our two candidates and send them to Phoenix to make the changes necessary to bring prosperity back to our state."

Zerull could not be reached Friday. Humphries said he has been watching the shifting numbers and hopes the counting finishes soon.

"The votes are still coming in," he said. "We'll see what happens. Of course, when you work so hard, you want to win, and it had looked like it was going my way. But I like Marilyn, and if Marilyn wins, good for her."

Pima County still needs to count 2,100 early ballots that were turned in on Election Day and 3,100 provisional ballots, some of which will end up being discarded as invalid.

Elections Director Brad Nelson said the count should be done by midday today.

Pinal County still has 1,800 provisional ballots to count. Officials expect many of them to be from District 26 because it includes SaddleBrooke, which always has a huge turnout.

Pinal officials said they had hoped to get most counted by Friday night. But they didn't expect to finish with the most difficult to verify provisional ballots until Tuesday.

State law requires a recount if the margin between two candidates is less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the votes cast for those two candidates. Right now, that number is 18 votes, though it likely will change as more votes are counted.