By Julie Estep

WESTPORT — Spirits started off high in the early evening Tuesday when the Democrats gathered on the outdoor patio at the Little Barn restaurant to watch the election results.

Jonathan Steinberg and Candice Savin, the Board of Selectmen candidate team, spoke buoyantly about what they hoped to accomplish if elected.

“This is the first competitive campaign I’ve really ever been in so I’ve learned a ton,” Savin said.

As the votes were still coming in, Steinberg, who has represented District 136 for six terms, said he would give up his job as a state representative because he wanted to make the first selectman role a full-time commitment.

Across the street at Democratic headquarters, Democratic Town Committee Chair Ellen Lautenberg and several others were at a computer compiling the results as they were phoned in from the different polling places.

Max Kaplan, the campaign manager for Steinberg and Savin, and others hovered around a laptop on the restaurant’s deck watching the shared document get updated from across the street.

While the three Democratic candidates for the Planning and Zoning Commission — Michael Cammeyer, Neil Cohn, and Danielle Dobin — got good news right away with the first results to come in, the race was immediately tighter for the top of the ticket.

The first look at the absentee ballots — more than 1,400 of them — painted a more positive note for Steinberg, but as more district reported preliminary in-person voting tallies, things grew more stressful.

As it became clear Republican candidates Jennifer Tooker and Andrea Moore were taking the lead, it also became apparent that the results might be close enough for a valid recount.

By the time the numbers were unofficially totaled, Tooker’s lead amount to a slim 61 votes, with a couple hundred absentee ballots yet to be counted.

Savin was emotional, but found comfort with her family. Steinberg was more cavalier and indicated the votes would likely require a closer look before anything was finalized — something Lautenberg said her Republican counterpart, Joe Sledge, had concurred on.

Still, when they finally addressed their supporters at around 10 p.m., both Steinberg and Savin’s message felt largely resolved to seemingly inevitable results that the GOP had taken the race.

“To think that we are here at this moment and we haven’t validated all of your good efforts, let alone all the things we’ve been talking about, disappoints me,” Steinberg said. “It would be wonderful if we had a strong validation at this point.”

“The fact that we’re uncertain, we don’t know what the answer is, is only an indication that our community still has a lot more to talk about and that conversation is healthy and productive,” he said.

“Candice and I are very proud of the campaign we ran,” Steinberg said. “We focused on real issues that matter to Westport.”

Lautenberg said more exact numbers would not be available until Wednesday morning.

Dobin, meanwhile, said she was proud of how Westport came out to support the record of the Planning and Zoning Commission and that it reflected the work the committee hopes to continue doing for the town.

“I know that Andrea and Jen will do a great job as well,” she said, “and I’m looking forward to working with them.”

“I feel really confident that Westport will be in good hands,” she said. “It’s always disappointing to see your team lose but at the same time, we’re really fortunate in Westport to have such terrific people running for office.”

Along with Republican candidate for P&Z Jack Whittle, who stopped by to congratulate the Democratic team, Republican Board of Education candidate Robert Harrington paid a visit to hear Steinberg’s response to the election.

“What Jonathan and Candy said on the WP website issue and the specific plans they have for rebuilding the schools, to me, put forward a very clear and positive campaign,” he said.

“I don’t care if I’m a Republican or a Democrat, their message on those two issues resonates with me and so I wanted to come and hear Jonathan concede and see what he has to say,” said Harrington, who likewise shared congratulations for Tooker and Moore.