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DENVER — Gov. John Hickenlooper was engaged in a tough test against Republican challenger Bob Beauprez as returns from Tuesday’s election came in but was starting to pull away early Wednesday morning.

As of 5 a.m., Hickenlooper led Beauprez by 13,506 votes with counting continuing in several counties.

In Denver County, about 11,000 ballots still need to be counted, and Hickenlooper has been winning the county by a 74 percent to 22 percent margin over Beauprez. Officials there stopped counting ballots to take a break and will resume Wednesday morning with about 11,000 ballots still be counted.

In reliably Democratic Boulder County, about 30,000 votes still need to be tallied and officials expect to be counting until midday.

The margin was so close late Tuesday night as both candidates ended up telling supporters to go home and wait for all the ballots to be counted.

Hickenlooper told his supporters at Union Station in LoDo to go home and get some sleep around 11:30 p.m.

“It begins to look like we are not going to get a resolution tonight,” Hickenlooper said.

The crowd responded chanting “Four more years.”

Beauprez had the same message to his supporters — although seemed much more confident.

“It’s been a huge night for Republicans,” Beauprez said. “We’ve got a little more work to go, but we’re on the right side of even, aren’t we?”

Beauprez then urged the crowd to go home, get some shut eye, “and then we get up tomorrow and celebrate.”

Beauprez spent much of the campaign attacking Hickenlooper on public safety matters: his indefinite reprieve for murderer Nathan Dunlap and Department of Corrections policies that he argues have placed too many dangerous offenders back on the streets and made it harder for prosecutors to charge juveniles as adults.

Hickenlooper tried to revive his political fortune that at one time made him a contender for national office and avoid becoming the first Colorado governor to not win re-election in more than 50 years.

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