The race for county controller slipped away from Republican Michelle Smith and swayed in Democrat Tom Amundsen's favor as election returns trickled in Tuesday night from the Shenango Valley.

Amundsen defeated Ms. Smith by 965 votes -- a gap of about 4 percentage points -- in this year's only contested county race, according to unofficial tallies.

"I'm going to do the best job I possibly can for the voters and the taxpayers ... and use my experience to work for them," said Amundsen, a 45-year-old Hermitage resident.

Amundsen, who audited U.S. Defense Department contracts for 11 years, made his victory speech at the Sharpsville Veterans of Foreign Wars more than three hours after the polls closed.

Amundsen appeared to trail Ms. Smith, a 22-year-old from Worth Township, for most of those three hours.

Democrats, however, often fall behind early and surge late in countywide races because elections workers must take their tallies to the Mercer County Courthouse after polls close at 8 p.m.

Precincts in nearby GOP strongholds in the Mercer and Grove City areas are typically among the first to report. Further away, precincts in the Shenango Valley, where Democrats outnumber Republicans 7-to-3, are among the last to report.

Ms. Smith staked a commanding lead in the early going. One hour after polls closed, with tallies from eight of the county's 100 voting precincts reported on the county Web site, Ms. Smith had twice as many votes as Amundsen and led by nearly 600 votes.

Two hours after polls closed, with 74 precincts reported, Ms. Smith led by 1,200 votes.

But the remaining 26 precincts, most of them in the Shenango Valley, carried more than 5,700 votes -- a quarter of the votes cast Tuesday for either Amundsen or Ms. Smith. Amundsen collected nearly 4,000 of the remaining 5,700 votes.

"It was a tough experience, knowing it was close and votes in the Shenango Valley were still out," Ms. Smith said.

"I was encouraged by the support I received," Ms. Smith said of her 11,097 votes.

Ms. Smith, who does not know if she will seek office in the future, said she phoned Amundsen at about 11:30 p.m. to congratulate him on his victory.