Republican Rep. Jean Schmidt, known for calling a Democratic lawmaker a coward, clinched re-election Tuesday when additional ballot counts were released two weeks after the election.
     
Results from heavily Republican Warren County in southwest Ohio's 2nd District added to Schmidt's lead, giving her an insurmountable edge of about 3,300 votes over Democratic challenger Victoria Wulsin.
     
Schmidt had 51 percent of the vote compared with 49 percent for Wulsin, according to unofficial results.
     
The race was one of a handful that had remained unresolved across the country since Election Day when the Democrats took control of Co0ngress.
     
Schmidt, a backer of Bush's Iraq policy, quickly gained national attention in Congress last year with an ill-fated verbal assault on the House floor against Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat and decorated Marine veteran who served in Vietnam. Of Murtha's call to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq, Schmidt said: "Cowards cut and run. Marines never do."
     
Schmidt had already assumed she had won after Election Day; Wulsin has refused to concede until after all ballots are counted.Some counties were still counting provisional and absentee ballots.
     
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)