WATERLOO - Waterloo firefighter and former University of Iowa football player Kerry Burt pulled ahead of incumbent State Rep. Tami Wiencek late Tuesday on the strength of absentee ballots.

After Wiencek held a lead for most of the evening, Burt roared past Wiencek after some 22,000 absentee ballots were counted, a substantial portion of which contained votes in the Burt-Wiencek race.

Unofficial totals showed Burt with 6,155 votes and Wiencek with 5,916. Some 150 absentee ballots had yet to be counted, along with provisional or challenge ballots.

Although Burt was receiving congratulatory handshakes, Wiencek, the former longtime KWWL-TV news reporter and first-term incumbent, was not conceding defeat.

'I truly don't know what to say," Wiencek said. "I had always gotten the impression that my voters were gonig to split their ballots. Clearly the national race affected the vote.

"I figured it would be tight," she said. "I mean, it's one of the most Democratic districts in the state."