The Democratic Party’s premier election lawyer predicts that the Florida Senate race is heading for a hand recount, and he said Thursday that he thinks Sen. Bill Nelson may in fact be re-elected.

Marc Elias, the partner at Perkins Coie who is now representing Nelson’s Senate campaign for recount purposes, said he expected that when the first round of counting of ballots is completed, the margin between Nelson and Republican Gov. Rick Scott will come down to within the 0.25 percent threshold required under Florida law for a manual count. The race is already within the 0.5 percent machine recount threshold.

“Currently Sen. Nelson trails by fewer than 22,000 votes,” Elias told reporters on a Nelson campaign conference call. “I expect that that is going to close.”

Elias said, “I think that they are roughly equal probability,” that Nelson will be ahead or behind at the start of a hand recount, calling it a “jump ball.”

“We believe that at the end of this process, Sen. Nelson is going to be declared the winner,” Elias said.